


Embers

by Adrian_B



Series: Ashen [2]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: AU; Kishin not revived, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Murder, Nonbinary Crona (Soul Eater), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Serial Killers, Some Soul/Maka/Crona OT3 for the soul, Stalking, Timeskip; all characters are adults by now, Violence, kidnappings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23134312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrian_B/pseuds/Adrian_B
Summary: Ten years have passed and for many former students, their lives have settled into a sense of normalcy. Meisters and weapons hunt corrupted souls, the war between witches and humanity has not ceased, all that has changed is that they have grown older, perhaps wiser.Now, between a serial killer on the loose and children going missing, Maka and Soul are sent to Europe to investigate.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Ashen [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1587799
Comments: 22
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

After the defeat of the Acolytes and their leader, Kai Palakiko, in the frozen desert of Antarctica, life had been busy for virtually everyone. The DWMA was occupied with trying to repair the damages that the Acolytes had caused, to rebuild the lives that had been ruined, to help process those that survived and were being locked up. But, mostly, it was spent dealing with the aftermath of a slaughter, and comforting mourning parents.

A lot of people had died during the fight, a lot of people on both sides. Even if it had been a victory for the DWMA, the cost had been steep. The deaths had not just been at the battle of Antarctica, however, rather, there had been bloodshed all over the globe.

During the first year after the victory, things had only gotten worse; members who had not been present for the battle retaliated against the DWMA and against Death. They killed their neighbors in the name of the Acolytes, set off bombs in public places, slaughtered people left and right to avenge their so-called ‘God’. It took so much time, but through suicide attacks and the DWMA hunting these lingering members down, the violence died down too. Still, there was so much left to heal, both personally and globally.

The battle had been horrible, bloody, cruel. Human against human, most of pure souls swayed by differing opinions, brainwashed through generations of cultic beliefs. 

It took time before meisters and weapons were able to relax again, able to fall into their old routines. No longer was there a massive cult, an army of humans, sorcerers and witches alike waiting to topple the order of the world.

Everyone needed a distraction, something to let them forget, even if it was just for a single night, the horrors that they had seen and done. And so, the annual Winter Festival was born: a night to celebrate the victory against the Acolytes, and to honor the heroes who fought to the last breath to put an end to them. Every year for the past decade saw parties, festivals and celebrations lit up the sky all over the world on that night. 

No place, however, was more festive than Death City, the seat of Lord Death’s power, home to many veterans from the Battle of Antarctica, and the target and source of Kai’s wrath. The city always goes all out for the Winter Festival, so much so that the roads were shut down all day so that preparations could commence, though the celebrations don’t start until the sun sets. Lanterns in the shape of Death's face illuminate streets, flowers hang from signposts and windows, symbolic black and white ribbons and banners flowing about. Pictures of those who died in the fight were set up at a shrine that was set up, and people would leave gifts to their dead friends and family to honor their sacrifices. 

Vendors set up booths and tents all over the main road, performers would be out and about, music and plays alike. Children would dash from booth to booth, spending their parents’ money on games and food, while their parents would fight a futile battle to keep their kids in sight or at their side. Students and teachers crowded around stages, or showed off their tricks to enthralled children. People buzzed with life and joy as the moon hung above them, watching in delight. It was the night where everyone would have a good time. 

Well, most of everyone. 

Maka didn’t hate the festival. She had been there in the fight, she knew how terrible it had gotten, she knew what happened. The festival was something that people needed. But, she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy it, not really. It was a painful reminder of a terrible battle. 

It was the ten-year anniversary of the defeat of the Acolytes and of the witch Kai, but it was so much more than that. For Maka, it reminded her of the day that Maleko died, and a part of her couldn’t help but bitterly feel that they were celebrating his death, too. The festival was a reminder of a little boy who would rather die with his mother than live without her. 

How could Maka bring herself to fully celebrate with that in the back of her mind?

Maleko had been a friend. He’d been family, during his time at the school she’d come to see him as a baby brother. He’d helped open her eyes, to see that the world wasn’t quite so black and white, that someone’s circumstances of birth didn’t dictate if they were good or evil, that being born wasn’t reason enough to die.

He had been a sorcerer, the enemy of the school, but she could never see him as an enemy. He was kind, he was sweet. All he wanted was to reunite with the woman he considered his mother, all he wanted was to be with his family. He didn’t care about the war, he didn’t care about who was good or who was bad, he just wanted to go home. But he couldn’t, nothing would be the same ever again, even if they’d won the war and beat the DWMA during that fight, he had already lost. 

Kai was dying, poisoned by her own companion. Maleko would never have the life he wanted, not when he’d already lost the one person who mattered.

After Maleko had saved her and Soul, she had lost track of him, unable to find his soul in the chaos around them. But she had seen him fall, wrapped up in Kai’s arm, as the final tower she erected crumbled, saw them both fall and be swallowed up by the freezing sea. 

She had held out hope, her, Soul, and others who had befriended the boy, they had held onto a sliver of hope that he had survived. But, when the official death tally was counted, when Stein, Sid, and Marie had fished the bodies out of the sea, she couldn’t pretend. Maka had to accept the reality; Maleko was dead. 

At first, Maka wanted to hate him. Hate him for choosing to die when he still had so much life to live, decades, centuries even left to live. She screamed, angry that she had lost a friend, heartbroken that she hadn’t been able do anything, something that could have prevented all of this. Soul and Crona had been there for her during that rough few months. Had consoled her while she consoled them. After the grief subsided, she was able to find reason once more.

Maleko, even if he had survived, would never have returned to the DWMA willingly. At the end of it all, he had come to hate them. The school was the reason Kai died, they hunted her down. He’d only have been driven into the arms of the other witches. With his magic, the anger he felt towards them, there was no doubt he would have grown to become one of their greatest enemies, one who only wanted revenge. And, a part of Maka knew that she wouldn’t have been able to blame him.

It had been hard for her to return to the DWMA after that fight. She had been seriously hurt during the fight, and even after she and Soul both recovered, it had been hard to go back to how things had been after the bloodshed and slaughter she had witnessed, had been a part of.

There was little doubt that Maka had her ideals and beliefs, that she believed in the mission of the DWMA, it’s strive to protect the greater good, to be defenders of the people, to fight the monsters that normal men and women couldn’t. She would always believe in that, would always agree with that. But, because of the Acolytes, because of Kai Palakiko, words she had said, truths she had brought to light...well… it was harder for Maka to be as dedicated as she had been. She realized that there was a lot that the school did that was morally ambiguous, that there were decisions the leaders, that Death, made that felt wrong.

Children could be seen as enemies deserving death if they weren’t human. Humans with pure souls could be executed if what they believed in went against the order Lord Death tried to maintain, even if they didn’t think they were in the wrong. The Acolytes had thought Death a false God, thought him to be a wolf among sheep, monster because he was _Death_ , because he recruited children and teens to fight the wars of adults. 

Maka could understand where they were coming from, she could see their reasoning for why they would hate him so much. But, they worshipped a witch, they worshipped Kai, who had killed more than any could count, believed her to be a true God and waged war on Death and the DWMA.

And so, they were killed.

They hadn’t been good people, many of them had become killers, fanatical killers. But, they were human, not Kishin Eggs.

It was hard knowing what the right thing was. When things were black and white, it was easy to know what to do, but she had learned the world wasn’t quite that way. There wasn’t a true ‘right’ choice.

Many of the people they fought may never have had a choice, or maybe their were doing what they had been told their whole lives they had to do, and she was killing them without giving them a chance to see that they don’t have to be bad. 

Crona, oh Crona, they were a perfect example of it. They had been raised by Medusa, someone Maka would forever consider the worst of the witches, they had been conditioned to be a killer, to be a monster. Crona and Ragnarok had been well on the path of becoming a true Kishin, living a life of bloodshed and madness because they hadn’t known anything else, because they hadn’t been allowed to. But, once given the chance to be something better, Crona blossomed and became something _amazing_. 

Why couldn’t they give others the same chance? Why was it to kill first, question second? 

It wasn’t like she could just stop, though. She and Soul were a team, and she was to make Soul a better Death Scythe than her father had ever been. But, it was harder for her to look at the missions and job requests and not question them. Did these people have reasons behind their actions? Were they hurting others because they were protecting someone else? Were they the victims and they just finally lashed back after years of abuse and pain? Had there been a force outside their control that drove them to such drastic means that their souls became tainted? 

Could it be resolved without taking their soul? 

It made her reluctant, hesitant where she would have been decisive. Soul had noticed. Crona had noticed. All her friends had noticed. None mentioned it, perhaps understanding her moral struggle. Even so, Maka did her best to push on with a smile, to continue working hard.

After a few years, they graduated. They went their separate ways, followed their own paths.

BlackStar and Tsubaki were in Japan, training at Tsubaki’s family home, while also helping Death Scythe Azusa in keeping local witch covens and yakuza clans from getting out of hand. From the letters Tsubaki regularly wrote to her, it seemed that they were doing well, that BlackStar was enjoying himself, and that he was right at home there.

Kid came back now and then, but he, Liz, and Patty were usually on the move, going after one witch or another, communicating mostly through call. His father couldn’t leave the city, so Kid did the work for him. Liz had even gotten a job as a journalist for a fashion magazine that she worked on while they travelled. Maka always kept an eye out for any of her articles. 

The only ones who stayed in the city were Soul, Crona, and Ragnarok. The Demon Sword often complained that if he was able to, he would have left them a long time ago; Maka doubted that was true, he loved his meister, he wouldn’t abandon Crona. Her relationship with both Soul and Crona had deepened over the years, it had felt completely natural for them to grow so close.

Spirit had suggested she apply to be a teacher at the academy. Maka had considered it, she was suited to be a teacher, she knew all the material, she felt that she was good at mentoring others. The idea of teaching the newest generations of meisters and weapons was tempting, it really was. But, Maka didn’t want to be anchored to Death City. She wanted to be out in the world, doing good, taking missions and helping people, protecting people. She still had to make Soul into a Death Scythe. 

Staying in Death City would mean that her opportunity to do so would be limited. So, she refused and continued to take jobs with Soul. Maka was careful about the jobs she took, no longer blindly accepting that everyone on the lists were irredeemably evil. In a way, it had made her all the better of a meister. 

Some missions, though, even Maka had trouble trying to see the others view, had trouble thinking of ways they might not be as bad as the missions made them out to be.

“And, so you see, this makes the seventh child in the past month to go missing in the area,” Death said, bouncing in his spot as he stood before Maka and Soul. There was a map showing on his mirror, a large area of England circled in red. “A further study showed that there have been almost fifty reported abductions in the area in the past two years where the child has yet to be found, even more likely to have been unreported.” 

No matter how much Maka may try, she couldn’t fathom what reasoning a person might have to justify child abduction. 

“And you want us to go and investigate, correct?” Maka asked, standing straight and stiff as she faced Lord Death, ignoring her papa who stood at his own side.

Death gave a slight bow. “Yes, that’s is correct, The police have done all that they can, but haven’t made much progress. It will just be the two of you, however, I don’t want to send a large group in fear that the kidnappers may notice. If they know more people are snooping around, they’ll get cautious. At worst, they might even flee before we catch their trail.”

“Going around and stealing kids, how uncool can you be?” Soul shook his head, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. His expression was his usually relaxed, lazy one, but Maka could see the underlying disgust in his eyes, that unspoken hate towards these kidnappers. “Not a single one’s come home yet?”

“Unfortunately, none have been found,” Spirit spoke up, holding a stack of papers in his hands and glancing through them. “The police can give you more information when you get there, and since we expect you to be down there for a while, we’ll arrange for a place to stay in the meantime, as well as some financial assistance so that you won’t be lacking necessities.”

“Considering that it is the Winter Festival tonight, we can assume there is a high chance another child may go missing during it,” Death added. “Which makes it even more important that we find who has been stealing these children, and more so, to find the children and bring them home.”

Maka frowned, he was right. Everyone would be out during the festival, not just in Death City, but all over. It’d be easy for someone to snatch a child when they were constantly running from their parents side during the night. They could disguise themselves as a vendor or performer, lure the child away. “There’s no way we’ll make it there in time for the festival,” Maka warned. They’d be there by morning at the earliest. It was a ten hour flight, and they were only human. 

“I’m aware,” Death agreed, “I would have arranged for this sooner, but until now, the police have insisted on handling this on their own; our aid has only just been requested.”

This was the kind of mission that Maka could do, that she could do and not feel doubts, not second guess the guilt of her enemy. There was no way to second guess or to doubt, there was no way that those responsible weren’t a terrible person. She knew this was a mission she would be focused and steadfast on, and there was little doubt that her papa and Lord Death knew. She’d do what she had to in order to find these kids. If they were still alive, her mind added. There was no guarantee that they were still okay. 

She just had to hope that they were.

“When we head out there, where do you suggest we head to first?” Soul asked.

Clapping his hands together, the reaper gave them a nod. “Yes, yes. Once you arrive, you’ll be meeting with Detective Cain from the local police department. He’ll debrief you on everything that’s going on,” he explained. “He’s the lead detective on the case who you’ll be working with.”

Spirit took a step forward, “He’s apparently pretty charming, but Maka, you can’t fall for anything he might say,” he was quick to say. “If he tries anything on you, too, just give me a call and I’ll take the first plane down there!” 

It took all her willpower not to roll her eyes. Maka was a grown woman now, and her father was still acting like this. She could take care of herself. “We haven’t even met him,” she chided her father instead. “I’m not going to fall for some guy I just met, what year do you think this even is?”

Even if she was the sort of person to believe in love at first sight, what could this detective potentially have to offer that could trump the ones she already had in her life? But, that was beside the point. “Is there anything else we need to know?” she asked the two instead.

“This has been under investigation for a few years already, so there is quite a case file already formed. That being said, I’m sure the police will be more than happy to assist you and Soul in whatever you need,” Death said, his voice was far too cheery considering they were talking about a case revolving children being stolen away. “We’ve already covered your expenses for the plane, all that needs to be done is for you two to pack what you need and head out.”

“Make sure you call me once you land, too! Call me every day!” Spirit added, which Maka promptly ignored.

Instead, she gave Lord Death a bow, “Understood. We’ll head out as soon as we can.”

“We’ll catch these kidnappers in no time,” Soul added with a crooked smirk and a nod towards Spirit and Death. “Those kids will be back home before you know it.”

* * *

At the completion of the mission debriefing, the two had gone straight to their shared apartment to prepare for the coming trip. They still shared their home with Blair, and for the duration of any mission away from home, this one included, she was the one who would tend to their home in their absence. As such, Maka needed to make sure that Blair would have enough money to cover groceries and emergency expenses. Some of these expenses would probably end up being fish or wine, but so long as the cat caused no trouble while they were gone, she would be fine with it.

The two were going to be joining an investigation that had been in the works for a few years by now, so it was hard to gauge just how long to pack for when Maka didn’t know just how long they would be gone for. In the end, she decided that a weeks’ worth of clothes and other necessities should suffice. If they were there for longer, which she imagined they likely would be, then they could use local laundromats to clean their clothes and buy what else they needed while there. So, by the end of it all, she and Soul both had about two bags packed and ready to go.

There wasn’t much that Maka could say happened within the next handful of hours after that. She and Soul had gone to the airport and took a plane to England, to the small city where the heart of the investigation was taking place. There hadn’t been anything of note that had happened during that time.

The plane ride had been smooth, save for a few bouts of turbulence and a small bit of drama between some screaming children. Maka had taken the time to start reading a new book while Soul napped.

When the plane landed, it was getting late.

Carrying her bags as she left the doors, Maka looked at the throngs of people coming in and out of the airport, Soul right behind her. “Well, here we are,” she said. The sun was setting, the moon rising, people didn’t’ seem to be too anxious. “Where do you suppose we should go? Find a hotel or go straight to the police?”

Soul yawned, somehow still sleepy despite the nap he took on the plane. “We should probably check in with the station, let them know that we arrived,” he licked his lips and moved aside for a mother and her son to get by. “That way they know to contact us if something happens.”

“Right,” Maka nodded and started walking. They’d need to find a map, or maybe they could ask someone to point them the way to it. “Let’s give Crona a call when we settle in to a hotel later, too. I wanna know how their mission is going.” And it had been a while since she got to hear their voice; they’d been sent on a mission by Lord Death two weeks ago, and since then they only got to talk over the phone a small number of times.

Laughing, Soul followed beside her. “I’m sure Ragnarok has been making it miserable,” he joked and shook his head. “But, yeah, I’d like that. Be nice to check up on them, make sure they’re doing okay.”

They could talk, maybe not for too long—it was late, and even if Brazil was roughly three or so hours behind them, Maka didn’t want to keep Crona up for too long, especially not with how dangerous a mission Crona and Ragnarok were on. Maybe just a short call, a hello, make sure they were okay, that’d be fine.

Before Maka could go another step, a hand landed on her shoulder, bringing her to stop and firmly tugging her backward.

Instinctively, Maka reeled away, wrenching herself free from whoever had grabbed her and reaching for Soul, readying to face some thug who thought he was trying to be tough and probably preparing to mug them.

However, it wasn’t some street thug who had stopped them, not even a witch or Kishin Egg. When Maka turned around, what she saw—who she saw was a young man, a good few years older than her and Soul, dressed in a white button up and slacks, holding the suit’s jacket over his shoulder. The stranger had a handsome enough face, Maka supposed, and had a head of long hair that was a shade more orange than red, tied back in a messy ponytail. He looked like he could be some hired thug, but at the same time there was something about him that made her feel that he wasn’t one.

His eyes were gold in color, yet were much like Soul’s in shape. Even as he stared at the two, with one hand hanging onto the jacket he draped over his shoulder, the other—the one that had grabbed Maka—pulling back to hang at his side, he watched them with a look of disinterest. Maka’s eyes went lower on his body, taking in the sight of the likely loaded gun strapped to his hip.

Giving them both a once over, he tilted his head to the side, looking unimpressed with what he saw of the two. “Maka Albarn? Soul Evans?” the stranger asked.

Soul took a step forward, staring up at this man with a frown. “Yeah. And you are?” he asked carefully. Like Maka, he was a bit suspicious of being stopped and called out by a complete stranger, and it was clear by the look on his face that he didn’t appreciate Maka being grabbed and yanked back the way that she had been.

Maka frowned, tearing her gaze from the gun to look up at the mans face. He was taller than both of them, and in a way he looked like he easily intimidated others—but not Maka, and not Soul. They’d faced people scarier than him, tougher than him. He was going to have to try a lot harder to make either of them nervous.

As if to answer Soul’s question, a police badge was held up. “Elijah Cain,” the stranger introduced, holding the badge out for the two of them to see. “You two will be coming with me.”

It wasn’t a request.

He had already turned around and was walking away, his badge back to where it had been hung on his belt. He didn’t wait to make sure that Soul and Maka agreed, didn’t stop to make sure they were, indeed, following him. Elijah Cain just started walking away expecting the two to do just as he told them to do.

Soul frowned, “ _That’s_ Detective Cain?” Soul muttered to Maka, picking his bags up and following behind the man, making sure to keep enough of a distance from him that their whispers wouldn’t be heard.

Following suit, Maka shook her head. She had only heard of the man during their debriefing, and neither Lord Death or her father had painted that much of a picture of what kind of person he would be. Even so… “I expected him to be a bit…”

“Less of a dick?” Soul finished for her.

“Yeah,” Maka chuckled.

Elijah didn’t even turn to look at them. “How about you two quit your jawing and pick up the pace?” he asked them. “Or did you forget you’re here for a job and not a vacation?”

He was unpleasant, and Maka was finding that she wasn’t too big of a fan of him. However, she did quiet down and walk a bit faster; as much of a grump this detective seemed to be, he had a valid point: They were here to help with a series of children going missing, not to have fun. She couldn’t blame him if he was temperamental, this was a pretty serious issue.

So she followed Elijah through the streets with Soul scowling at her side, making sure to keep any snide remarks she had to herself. Now was not the time or place to be snippy.

Eventually they were lead to the precinct, a rather nondescript building on the outside. Elijah only said a few quick words to a few others on the way in for the cops to ignore Soul and Maka, and with that he had them being taken to a glass meeting room with a long oval table in the center of it.

There were a few whiteboards littered with case notes, scene photos, and names. A few carboard boxes were on the table, stuffed full of files that Maka could only assume were about this case. A couple of other officers were moving about the room, talking and discussing theories and ideas while flipping through one file and writing on the boards. The trashcans were full of empty Styrofoam coffee cups.

The people looked tired and stressed.

“Those are the files,” Elijah said, dragging a box over and shoving in to Maka. “Look through any of these that you want. We’ve got a list of suspects, but all of them have solid alibis for each kidnapping. What have you been told so far?”

Maka picked up the first file in the box, flipping it open and skimming the contents. “Kids have been getting stolen away. You’ve had about fifty in the past few years,” she answered, closing the file and picking up another, it’s information was fairly similar to the other; child had been alone, parent had left them alone for a few minutes to do something and when they came back the child was gone.

Taking a seat, Elijah threw his jacket over the back of the chair. “Half-right,” he said. “There has been fifty-eight reported cases of children going missing within a thirty-five kilometer radius of this city, all within two years. Considering not all parents actually _care_ , the exact number of children who are missing is no doubt higher.”

That didn’t make Maka feel any better.

Soul took a seat, leaning back and staring back at Elijah cooly. “And if it’s been two years, why haven’t you asked for help sooner?” he asked. “You sure waited a long time to ask Lord Death to send someone to help you, waited until there were too many kids gone. This an attempt to save face or something?”

He was baiting him, looking for a reaction, but Elijah gave him none. His gaze wasn’t stoic, it wasn’t uncaring, it was tired, it was the look of a man who didn’t have a single fuck left to give to the two of them. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, mate. Call it bureaucratic bullshit.” Elijah reached over to grab a coffee from the table, probably cold by now and already half-drank. “Politicians wanting to protect their bloody pride by not accepting outside help.”

“You don’t sound like you agree,” Soul continued.

“I don’t. They sat on their hands too fucking long and look where we are now,” Elijah responded, drinking the cold coffee.

Maka ignored them as they talked, instead focusing on the files as she went through one after the other, skimming through and taking in the information quickly until she had gone through half the files in the box. It was then that she looked up at the detective.

“You said it had been two years, right?” she asked, and when Elijah hummed a response, she continued. “Who was the first recorded victim?”

Elijah watched her evenly for a few moments before getting up from his seat. He pulled over another file box, rummaging through the folders before pulling one out. “Amanda Lewis,” he answered, opening it and sliding it across the table to Maka and Soul. “Twelve years old. Two years ago she left school but never made it home.”

Maka took the file into her hands, looking at the girl in the photo. She was small, long black hair, dark eyes. What Maka noticed first was that it was a school photo that was used in the file, not a personal one, not the kind of photo the family would have kept in their home. She moved the paper to look at other photos, her school, the route she was known to usually take, her house, her room.

Leaning over to look at the file, Soul glanced at the papers and then at Maka. “What’s going on in that brain of yours, Maka?” he asked.

She frowned, looked at the papers. This was the official start of it all, the first child who went missing. Well, if Maka and Soul were going to be on the case, they needed to start from the beginning. “Detective Cain, is there any way we can speak with the Lewis family tomorrow?”

Elijah raised a brow, “You have their statements right there,” he pointed out.

“I have questions I’d like to ask that aren’t found in here.”

There was a small pause, Elijah once again assessing her, “We’d like to avoid causing more distress to the families,” he said slowly, carefully. “But, if you think it’s important that we talk with them again, I’ll make the call and arrange for a meeting with them. Anything else?”

Maka began reorganizing the files, putting them back into their boxes. “Can we takes these with us? So we can read them and be ready for tomorrow?” she asked him. They’d need to familiarize themselves with the details of the case, and it’d be easier for them to do so when they get to their hotel rooms rather than try and read through the files all right here.”

“We’ve got copies of the files, so take the boxes with you,” Elijah nodded, grabbing the other two boxes and shoving them towards Soul and Maka. “If that’s all, then you two can leave, do your readings, and I’ll call you both tomorrow about meeting with the Lewis’. Get your sleep, and get ready because I can guarantee this isn’t going to be some easy hunt a monster and be done with it case like you’re familiar with.”

Soul chuckled as he stood, picking up a box and holding it in his arms, “If that’s your way of saying we’re not up to snuff, then you’re in for a treat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I hope you all enjoyed this first chapter to Embers. As always, I would love to hear what you thought of it, so leave a comment to let me know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Vague spoiler for Lucifer season 4's finale. Also someone has a very, very bad day.

As it turned out, Maka and Soul hadn’t needed to concern themselves with finding a place to stay. The department had arranged for the two of them to stay at a local inn and would be covering the cost of the room. Anything else, though, the two of them would be paying for. That was fine by her, it was more than she expected.

Sleeping Lamb was a small, cozy little inn, the innkeeper a friendly old woman who was happy to meet the two and to help them to their room.

It hadn’t taken much time to get their clothes situated, leaving the bags under their beds, ready to be pulled out as needed On the table, Maka and Soul placed the boxes that they had been given by Elijah, carefully removing the lids from the boxes to look at all the files stuffed inside. It was going to be a lot to read through, going to take a lot of time, and they still needed to get up early tomorrow for plans to meet Elijah, and then Amanda Lewis’ parents.

“Let’s start with Amanda’s case file, then work from the earliest to the most recent,” Soul offered, digging through the files to find the manilla folders that held hers. “We can look for any similarities between all the cases, find where they differed. That sound like a good starting point?”

Maka gave him a smile and took one of the folders that he’d brought out, taking a seat on the edge of one of the two twin beds. “That’s a good plan, Soul,” she agreed, pausing only to grab some notepads and pencils, handing some pages and pencils to Soul. “So we can make notes, keep track of things.”

He grunted, taking it and settled into the chair, getting to work.

Opening her folder, Maka frowned as she was once again staring at the face of Amanda Lewis. The girl, so young, was only twelve when she was stolen away. Her gaze as she stared at the camera was solemn, no smile on her lips or in her eyes.

Looking at her, Maka couldn’t help but to wonder. What had she been like? Had she been the quiet girl who sat in the back? The loud, rebellious one who always caused a scene? The smart girl who did her best in class, worked hard? Had she a lot of friends? Had she only been comfortable with a small group of people? What kind of hobbies had the child had before being kidnapped? What dreams had she had for the future?

Who was she? What did she want to be?

Maka tried to imagine possible answers as she read through the file, tried to think of what kind of girl she could have been at the time. A kind girl, not too loud, not too quiet, someone who didn’t like to cause problems, but the sort who’d protect her friends. Maybe she was that kind of person.

Flipping to another page, Maka read through the contents more closely as opposed to the skimming she had done at the precinct. Twelve-years-old at the time; DOB October 11th, 2006; birthplace here in Pocklington; only child; blood-type A Negative; in Year Seven at school; went missing on December 3rd. Reports in the file match what she had been told at the precinct, that she had last been seen leaving school but had never come home.

Reading the pages, Maka supposed it wasn’t impossible that she ran away, but with the influx on kidnappings, it was also unlikely.

Maka frowned, glancing up at Soul who read quietly, scribbling down notes of his own on his case file and glanced back to her own. There were photos of the bedroom and house in the back of the folder. She looked at them and her frown deepened. It looked like a perfectly normal room, all things considered, she couldn’t find anything in the rooms that might point to anything in particular.

Eventually, Maka finished Amanda’s file and moved on to another one, and then to another, slowly climbing through the name of children who had gone missing. Alexander Griff, eight, last seen in Haxby; Cassandra Drudey, five, last seen in Rillington; Jaime Afton, ten, last seen in Howden. The list went on, kids all over the Yorkshire area, going missing within the past two years and not being found.

There weren’t any threads that Maka could find that really connected the kids to one another, nothing in the files showed any similarity between them other than being close in age. They didn’t have anything about their lives that really stood out, nothing about their location, not even what they were wearing stood out.

Eventually, Maka’s eyes began to hurt from reading over all the files, her paper filled with so few notes that she’d feel ashamed if this had been her studying for a test.

Sighing, Maka leaned back and looked over to Soul who wasn’t even reading the files anymore, just poorly pretending to do so by leaning back in his chair with a file folder over his face. She would have thought him napping if it was not for how he kept moving and shifting. “Any luck on your end, Soul?” she asked him, watching Soul stretch and move.

“Nope. They’re all pretty young, most ten or under, all in the Yorkshire area, but that’s it,” Soul said, having reached for his notes and skimming over the meager few he had written down. “Nothing really stands out in the files, no similarities to note.”

“Same, it’s frustrating,” she admitted, straightening out the files she had read, making sure that they were still in order and tidy. Best to not earn the ire of the police for messing up the case files they’d borrowed. “How about we call it a night for now? I think we’ve gotten as much as we can from the files for now, and we do have to get up early tomorrow.”

Soul nodded, already getting up to collect the files that Maka had left on the side of the bed, straightening out the already straightened folders and putting them back into their boxes. “Want to try giving Crona a ring before we turn in?” he asked her as he closed the boxes. “I know it’s pretty late over in Brazil right now, they might even be sleeping, but checking up on them wouldn’t hurt.”

That got a small smile from Maka as she looked for where she’d left her phone. There it was, hanging out on the pillow. “We can _try_. But we won’t talk for long,” she said. “We’ll say a brief hello and make sure they’re doing okay, and then we’ll let them get some sleep.”

“And then we can get some sleep ourselves,” Soul agreed.

Maka nodded and waited until Soul took a seat beside her on the bed, the weapon sidling up close to her as Maka began dialing numbers into her phone and setting it to speaker so that both could speak and hear.

A few moments passed; they could hear the phone ring. One ring… a second…a third…

“A-ah! Hello?”

Maka perked up and beside her Soul smiled, leaning in closer to her and to the phone. “Crona, hello! We didn’t wake you, did we?”

There was a nervous pause, the sound of the background, the sounds of constant movement, chatter, and music, suggested to Maka that they didn’t. “Oh, no, no it’s okay.” Even now, after all these years, Crona still had a soft voice, still had their timid disposition. But, at the same time, there was something different to it, they sounded…. Off. “Sorry! I know it’s late, I sh-should be sleeping, I really sh-should! Just—some things came up, and—ah, sorry!”

“H-h-h- _heeeeeeey_! Who d’ya think yer talking too!” Ragnarok loudly slurred, cutting into the conversation, his voice peppered with numerous hiccups. There was a cry of alarm and the two shared a glance as there was a minute or two of muffled arguing and banter, they could easily tell the weapon was hitting and bullying Crona as he usually did. “Fuck! You’re talking to those idiots? _Piiiiiigy_! What do you want!?”

“Ah, Ragnarok, I almost forgot how you sounded,” Maka muttered, earning a laugh from Soul. “What’s up with you? You sound so weird.”

Soul cocked his head to the side, brows crunched up. “You actually sound kind of drunk,” Soul noted, paused to think, and added; “Both of you kind of sound like it, actually.”

Crona let out a loud yelp, seemingly dropping their phone to the floor and falling after it by the sound of the clamor. Some people laughed, and even Crona let out a laugh. “Uh, we… I think w-we are? Sorry, the I, uh, stood and the room started spinning, and then my legs didn’t work. Now I’m on the floor.”

“You okay?” Soul asked.

“I think?”

Maka shook her head, trying to think of what was going on over there. “Okay, _how_ did you two end up drunk? Crona, you’re not really the type to drink.” For as long as Maka had known Crona, she hadn’t known them to drink at all.

“R-Ragnarok,” Crona said.

And that would explain it. Crona may not have been a drinker, but Ragnarok had quite the fondness for it, if he was offered beer, Maka rarely saw him willingly turn it down. Which, since Ragnarok was Crona’s weapon _and_ their blood, it only made sense that Crona ended up getting drunk as a result of Ragnarok drinking.

“Detective Barrichello, we, ah, he said we ought to have fun—a break from the case, and he, um, took us to this bar,” Crona hiccupped, pausing to pull themselves back to their feet, or that’s what Maka assumed from the sound. “We hadn’t—hadn’t made any new ground or, or got any new evidence on the case, so he thought we needed it—Ragnarok’s been drinking when the Detective said he’d cover the tab.”

Soul laughed, resting his head on Maka’s shoulder and smiling warmly at the phone. “Sheesh, tell the guy to take it easy. Don’t need him being a drunk, and it certainly ain’t cool, I’m sure Maka can attest to that.”

An image of Spirit flashed across her mind and Maka gave a huff. “Just make sure you’re drinking plenty of water! Trust me, you and Ragnarok are going to have quite the hangover if you don’t,” she cautioned and then added just as hastily. “And be safe! Make sure you stick close to the detective or anyone else you’ve made friends with out there! You’re both drunk, I don’t want people thinking they can take advantage of you because of this!”

“T-take advantage?” Crona yelped, letting out a soft whimper. “W-why would…?”

Ragnarok let out an ungodly screech, “Like anyone could! Let them try! Let them try!” he yelled. “I’ll beat them! I’ll _kill_ them! Kill em and eat their souls! Just like the old days!”

“Ragnarok! No! We don’t do that anymore!”

“If they fuck with us, then there juuuust asking for it!”

“No they’re not!”

“Yes they are!”

Soul shook his head, looking to Maka and mouthing ‘dorks’ to her with an amused smile. Maka covered her mouth, stifling her laughter. It took her a minute before she was able to speak again, cutting into the argument the other two had. “Alright you two, settle down,” she waited a moment for them to calm back down. “You said you guys have made no headway on that Podcast Killer case Lord Death assigned you on?”

“No,” Crona confirmed gloomily, and Maka felt a little bad asking since it seemed to have brought down their spirit. “We’ve been searching and searching through all the past incidents, yet we still don’t got a lead.”

“Bastard is playing with us!” Ragnarok added. “Just wait, when I get my hands on him—I’ll gobble up his soul!”

“That soul you… could probably eat,” Crona mumbled. “I think.”

Soul chuckled, “Well, you’ll probably be able to eat his soul, hard to imagine that someone like _that_ isn’t a Kishin egg. So, when you two finally catch him, make sure you give the sicko a good thrashing.”

“We will!”

“Ragnarok, quiet down, the waitress is staring at us!”

Maka smiled fondly, though the smile was only for a moment. Just as her and Soul were on an important mission regarding a serial kidnapping, Crona and Ragnarok were dealing with a serial killing. Though at least those two had an idea of who they were after; a man who had been dubbed the Podcast Killer by the public, a name deriving from how he sets up a live podcast to stream him torturing and killing his victims.

It was horrifying, terrifying, the person behind it was undoubtedly a monster. But he was smart, Maka would give him that. The police weren’t able to track him down by his podcasts, and the corpses of his victims showed up all over the world, making it hard to narrow him down to one place when he seemingly had the ability to travel all over. The last few bodies had been found in South America, with the most recent being in Brazil, hence why Crona and Ragnarok were there.

“Just be careful, both of you,” Maka said, speaking a bit softer. Soul yawned beside her and she found herself smiling gently again. “It’s late, so I think Soul and I are going to turn in for the night. You two should do the same soon, too.”

“Ease up on the drinking, Ragnarok,” Soul added.

She could just picture the weapon sticking his tongue out at the phone. “I don’t have to do what either of you say.”

“I’ll try to drink plenty of water,” Crona promised, “I’ll, um, I’ll see with Barrichello when we can head back to the hotel.”

Maka kept smiling as she heard Ragnarok complain over Crona’s words. “Got it. You two have a good rest of your night and make sure you get plenty of sleep,” she said, feeling like a mother hen, but really she just wanted to make sure Crona was taking care of themselves while out there. “Good night, Crona, sleep tight, love you!”

And that tiny, embarrassed squeak that they gave, even when drunk thanks to Ragnarok, well it made her heart swell. “L-love you two. Both of you!”

Soul laughed, “Get some rest, and best of luck on your mission.”

With a few more minutes of drawn out farewells, Maka hung the call up and abandoned her phone on the bedside table, letting out a yawn of her own as she felt sleepiness catch up to her. She blinked, licked her lips, and then turned to look to Soul.

“Think they’ll get their mission done before us?” she asked.

Soul shrugged out of his shirt and undid his belt, “Who knows? They’ve been on their mission a lot longer than we have, and the killings been going on for about as long as the kidnapping, maybe a bit longer,” he mused as he pulled back the covers on the bed. “Wouldn’t be surprised if by the time we catch the kidnappers Crona’s already waiting back home for us.”

Maka smiled and slowly undid her pigtails, letting her hair down and leaving the hair ties by her phone. “Maybe we could make it a race, see who gets done first.”

“You’ll just overwhelm them if you do that,” Soul laughed.

“You’re right, that wouldn’t be fair,” Maka conceded, turning the lights to the room off and then climbing into bed beside Soul. “I do hope that they catch the guy soon. Feels like they’ve been gone forever, and just talking on the phone isn’t the same as being beside them.”

Soul nodded, pulling the blankets up over the both of them, “I know how you feel, but I think you should be focusing more on our mission at the moment instead of theirs. Crona knows what they’re doing. Let’s just focus on the kidnappings, and once ours is done, you can fret about Crona’s all you want.”

Yawning, Maka nodded and nestled in closer to him, “Fine, deal.”

But, for now she had time to not worry about either missions, let her mind be free of thoughts of kidnappings and murders and instead embrace the freedom of sleep and dreams. She and Soul could sleep, rest up their bodies and rest their minds so that come morning, when they go and meet up with Elijah, they could give the mission their all.

Right now, though, they just needed to worry about sleeping and not to sleep past their alarms.

* * *

_“Sea may rise, sky may fall. My love will never die~”_

Singing softly, he spun around his workroom. On a counter was a laptop and attached to it were microphones and other equipment meant to get the best sound quality possible captured as this moment was recorded and streamed. He had to make sure his lovely audience heard every little sound so that they could paint a detailed gruesome image in their heads.

“Please!”

He ignored the sobbing, the crying, continuing instead to sing along to the music as he prepared his tools, “Go on, go on, go bravely on, into the blackest night.”

The room was dimly lit, a few flickering and full lights hanging from the ceiling, and terribly cold, too. cold, concrete floors and walls, not a window to be seen, counters littered with bloodstained tools, more hanging from the walls, ropes, straps, gags, and numerous candles and other toys stored nice and neat. On a coat rack hung a few bloodied and long aprons, in a box were numerous long gloves. He smiled, tightening the straps of the apron he currently wore—had to make sure his clothes stayed nice and clean, and then pulled on a pair of gloves. They snapped against his forearms when he let them go, reaching almost as far as his elbows.

His smile didn’t cease as he stared at himself in the stained and broken mirror, looking at his fractured reflection in satisfied delight; “Hold my breath, ‘til your return. My love will never die~.” He spun around mid-verse, holding a pair of pliers in his hands as he sang, facing the poor sap strapped to the old, torn, leather dental chair before him. “Lovely song, isn’t it? Played during _Lucifer’s_ season four final—such a powerful scene, really, just that final “I love you”—it brought a tear to my eye. I don’t know _how_ anything in the upcoming fifth season is going to be able to top it. Ohoho! Spoilers, I suppose, for those who may not have seen it yet.”

The man he had caught was middle-aged, probably in his thirties, a head full of curly brown hair, eyes bloodshot and teary, face unshaven. His wrists were bruised as he continued to fight against the leather straps holding him down, more straps holding him by the ankles and by his bared waist. He was naked, save for the briefs, as Samael had taken the liberty to strip him down to his skivvies while the man was still fast asleep from the drugs. It made the process so much easier when his prey didn’t have their pesky clothes in the way. He hated having to waste time tearing and cutting the fabrics away during his sessions just so he could get to the flesh and bones beneath, he didn’t have the patience for that kind of thing, and he didn’t want his audience to grow bored because he had to spend a few minutes removing clothing while they waited in tantalizing suspense to know what he would do next to his prey.

“Please,” the man begged, struggling ever so pointlessly. “I’ve done nothing wrong, _please let me go!”_

Samael laughed, twirling the pliers in his hands as he smiled at the man, “Why, what makes you think you’re here because you did something wrong?” he asked playfully as he began walking to his victim. “If I only picked people who did wrong deeds, well, I might as well apply for a badge and gun~!” he laughed heartily as he said that, leaning in close, careful not to bump the microphone hanging by them.

He spoke with a smile, but his voice was low, dangerous. “You don’t need to do something _wrong_ to wind up here, my friend. Otherwise, only people who did something ‘wrong’ would get hurt, and we both know that isn’t true.”

Pulling away, Samael spared a glance to the laptops he had positioned carefully on a clean table, look at the screen that was pulled up. The chat log was full, moving far quicker than most could read as hundreds listened and talked. His viewers in the hundreds, a number that steadily climbed higher.

Some commenters weren’t sure if this was real or fake, others knew what was going on and were begging for him to stop, and even more, others who thought this was fake were egging him on and laughing. Even more were staying silent and listening, knowing this was wrong but unable to tear themselves away from the scene. Seeking to know what happens next, begging to be entertained. And Samael was nothing if not an entertainer.

“What shall we do first, my dear viewers?” Samael loudly asked, clapping his hands together in giddy delight. “I’ve him strapped down to the leather chair—not gagged this time as you can tell. I thought you’d like to hear his screams and begging more clearly. His wrists, his ankles, his neck and waist are all tied down by leather straps to keep him from going anywhere. We could tighten the straps up, too. Cut off the circulation to his hands and feet—oh they’d turn into such a lovely shade of color, don’t you think?”

He smiled, humming as he circled the man strapped to the chair, keeping an eye on the ever moving chat on the computer, his discerning eyes picking out a few comments here and there in the rush. Some telling him that he was a sick fuck, others laughing and asking if he was being ‘for real’, and even fewer actual suggestions from the brave few. Samael chuckled, coming to stand behind his prey, fixing his hair and running fingers through the dark curls.

So many ways to start this off, so many things he could do to this poor sap. The lad was beyond himself with whimpers, begging and crying, shaking like a leaf in a storm. “You’re absolutely adorable like this,” Samael whispered to him with a laugh, looking back up at the screen and pushing himself away from the nameless chap. “Ah! Righty! Brilliant ideas, my wonderful audience. I now know just what to do to really set the ball rolling.”

He turned the chair so that the man faced him, knelt down and with the pliers he had been holding, Samael took hold of the fingernail on his index finger. He smiled up at his friend, “This is going to hurt—but that’s the best part.” The man squirmed, and when Samael gave the plier and nail a good _yank_ , well, the scream was pure euphoria to his humble ears.

Samael could only let out a deep sigh as he let the bloodied nail fall to the ground, listening to the man scream and cry in pain, as the chat continued to move, even faster than before, letting out a choir of alerts singing in the air along with the music playing in the background. He didn’t need to turn and look at the chat, the initial response to the first strike was always the same. Horror, confusion, doubt, laughter. Humans bearing their souls to the world under the safety of anonymity.

He smiled, his teeth fully bared, “Ah, where are my manners! My dear watchers can’t see what’s going on, and I completely forgot! Well, fret not everyone! As you can hear from his screams, I’ve begun work, though he’s quite the overreactor, now isn’t he? Why, all I’ve done is just tear out a single fingernail on his index finger and he’s gone and soiled himself,” Samael chuckled, and reached for the next nail. “But, we can’t stop right there, now can we? Let’s get the rest of these pesky little things out of the way.”

There was only an hour to work, well—Samael could have spent more time, he was the one in control, but he needed to exhibit some self-control, and for him that was maintaining a strict timeframe for how long he let these sessions last. An hour to create his works of art, an hour to entertain the masses with torture and horror.

It was a messy process, and his apron and gloves were well used, coming out soaked in blood by the end of it all. He had used quite a few of his tools; his knives to cut into his skin, hammers to break bones, he’d driven rusty nails into the flesh, had burned him, poured hot oil into open wounds. Everything had been wonderful, had driven him mad with delight, and it wasn’t even his best work.

Samael heaved a happy sigh; the recording done and dragged the body from the chair and onto an empty table. “You were such a wonderful partner today,” Samael said, giving his mangled corpse a pat on the shoulder, finding a clean scalpel to work with. “But, we’re not done, not yet.” He spun the knife between his fingers, running his hand over the cold chest, smearing blood on the gloves he wore.

He was going to need to think of where to leave the body after he had all his fun with it, had to make sure it was somewhere fitting, somewhere that his little followers could find—a treat for them. It wasn’t any fun if his so-called hunters couldn’t find the trails he left them. He wanted them to think they were getting closer to finding him while feeling like they weren’t making progress at all. But where oh where would he take them? Samael smiled as he looked to the wall of maps, to all the colorful circles he’d left over areas of interest.

Yorkshire, both East and North Riding circled in vivid red. Both an area he’d like to avoid leading his trail through while also an area of great interest to him. Nevada circled in black pen, with a fitting skull over it—he’d rather avoid Nevada, actually he’d like to keep out of America as much as possible, a filthy, corrupt, awful nation that one was. The Nagano prefecture was also circled, as was the Tokyo and Osaka prefectures. He could always leave it in some Brazilian city, just to mess with his hunters further. Oh, the possibilities were just endless, weren’t they? It just added to the thrill, to the fun.

With a song on his tongue, he drove the blade into his chest with acute precision, cutting through the skin and muscle, pushing past the bones until he had torn the untouched heart out of the chest. His smile grew, his body vibrated with anticipation and excitement as he held it carefully in his hands.

Oh, now _this_ was his favorite part.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Whispers* I'm still alive, don't worry.  
> I was taking a brief break from writing, but don't worry, this story is still going.

The café was small with an even smaller number of customers, all of them seeming to be chatting happily and quietly to their respective groups. It was still fairly early morning, only being seven A.M., much of the world still waking up or getting ready for school and work. The smell of coffee and breakfast filled the air, helping to wake Maka up as she and Soul found themselves a seat by a window.

“Any idea what you want?” Maka asked as she picked up the menu on the table, eying the drinks listed.

Soul grunted and then muffled a yawn, “Bacon, definitely,” was his response as he lazily flipped through the menu. It had been a rough morning in that neither of them really wanted to get up. It had been a rough night actually trying to fall asleep and neither got a lot of sleep in the end. So long as they could stay awake and focused enough to do their jobs, though, that’s all that mattered.

“Bacon sounds good,” Maka agreed as she flipped to the breakfast side of the menu. She could smell the savory flavor of all the other customers plates and it made her mouth water and stomach rumble. Honestly, any sort of food sounded good with how hungry she felt at that moment.

The plan currently was that Soul and Maka would have some breakfast, take some time to wake up, and then they’d go find Elijah to meet up, discuss the case, and then head out to meet with Amanda Lewis’ parents. They still had about a good hour before they had to do any of that, though, and so Maka didn’t feel any particular need to hurry or rush. She and Soul could take their time with breakfast and then catch a cab to the precinct.

If they had time after everything that day, maybe Maka could go and give Tsubaki a call, it wouldn’t hurt to see how her and Black*Star were doing, and she definitely wanted to call Crona. After last night, with Ragnarok drinking and their team dragging them to bars, Maka wanted to make sure they were okay. She couldn’t imagine Ragnarok was being nicer to Crona if the two of them were hungover.

A waitress came to their table, a bouncy woman just a couple years younger than Maka but a good few inches taller. Her hair was tied back and she wore the standard uniform, a pen and notepad in her hands. Maka spied the nametag she wore, Amber. “Hello!” the server greeted with a bright smile. “What can I get for you two?”

Maka returned her smile with one of her own, “I’ll take a house blend and some bacon and eggs,” she said, putting her menu down.

“Make that two,” Soul added as he did the same, leaning back in his seat with another yawn.

Their waitress nodded and wrote that down on her pad. “Is there anything else I can get for you two?” she asked, and then nodded when the two told her no. “Alright. I’ll be right back with your food shortly.”

With that, she was gone, off to give the cooks their orders and to help some other tables.

“So, what do you think we’ll find by talking to the Lewis family?” Soul asked as he watched Maka. “The police have already investigated them when Amanda went missing. We might just be tearing open old wounds by doing this.”

Maka frowned, folding her hands on the table. “Their daughter was kidnapped, I doubt they’ve gotten over it at all,” she pointed out. She couldn’t imagine how she would feel if she had a kid and then lost them, she’d feel horrible, doubt she’d ever get over it. “But, I’m hoping we might be able to find something new. Maybe there was some similarity between her and the other kids that was missed.”

“A hidden thread that can connect them all together,” Soul hummed. “Maybe they went to the same camp or maybe the same electrician worked on all their houses.”

“Exactly.”

The two chatted for a little longer, about the case, about Elijah, about Crona and their serial killer case. Nothing in particular, everything in particular. For a few minutes, at least.

Their food eventually arrived with Amber carefully balancing the platter on one hand. “Here we go. Two house blends, and two platters of bacon and eggs,” she listed as she placed a cup and plate in front of each of them. “Can I get you two anything else? Creamer? Sugar?”

Soul smiled, taking his fork and looking at his food with hunger in his eyes. “I’m good. How about you, Maka?”

“I’ll be fine, thank you very much,” Maka said to her. Such a friendly server.

Amber nodded, “Then I’ll be back to check on you in a little bit—” she cut herself off as the bell on the door jingled and the door closed.

From their seat, Maka and Soul had a perfect view of everyone who came and left the café, and so she let her gaze follow Amber’s to the newcomer who came in through the door.

He was young, Asian by the looks but it was hard narrow his ethnicity down beyond that from where they sat. He looked to be roughly the same age as Amber, which would have put him as a little younger than the DWMA pair. He looked like he was just an inch or two shorter than Soul, and had a head of messy black hair and a pair of green eyes, his face carrying the exhaustion of sleepless night—a feeling that both Soul and Maka could easily relate to. He was wearing black work pants and a grey hoodie, but Maka could see a button down shirt peeking out from under it. He carried a basic black sling bag over a shoulder.

Among agents and students of the DWMA, he would have likely come across as normal, perhaps dull even when compared to the rather extravagant outfits some liked to wear. But among normal civilians? Maka supposed that his accessories were a bit out of place. By that, she let her eyes fall to the to his hands, hidden by a snug pair of latex gloves, and then she let her eyes roam back up to his face. Everything below his eyes were hidden by the black face mask he wore.

Amber nearly dropped her tray as she fumble to search the pockets of her apron. “Oh, oh! He’s here!” she whispered hastily, excitedly, seemingly forgetting the table she had been serving, or her job for that matter, for a brief moment. She acted as if this man was a famous celebrity, the one she had been stalking on social media for yours—an perhaps he was, but that didn’t make her reaction any less…well… _weird_.

The confusion that Maka and Soul felt was palpable, and the pair exchanged a look before Soul reached a hand out to her, but refrained from touching. “Uh, miss?” he asked her, his voice laced with uncertainty and, well, disbelief at her sudden change in behavior. “You okay?”

“Oh? Oh! I’m fine, I’m fine!” Amber assured them having found her phone and now held it up to face the man who was carefully maneuvering around tables to get to the staff area. Ah, he was a coworker. Wait, was Amber taking a photo of him? She was taking multiple, by the shutter sounds. “He’s so cute!”

Soul looked to Maka and then to Amber. “Hey, I, uh, don’t think it’s all that legal to be taking someone’s photo without their knowledge,” He pointed out carefully, trying to dissuade her the best he could without the possible chance of her lashing back. “That’s kind of, ah… stalkerish.”

“I have to agree, it’s a little creepy,” Maka added. Actually, it was a lot creepy, but you don’t just say that to your server. Though she didn’t have full knowledge of the privacy laws out here, and knew that is was possible that just _taking_ photos of someone wasn’t necessarily illegal, it was probably still very frowned upon just as it would have been back home. 

Amber nearly dropped her phone as she jumped at the words. “Hey now, come on, I’m not a stalker!” she defended herself, not that it sounded all that convincing.

She paused, looked around, most of the people seemed to have gone back to their own business, taking their eyes off of the three of them. Satisfied, Amber drew in closer to whisper to the two. “I just, well, I really, _really_ like him. But Haruto’s not a very sociable person, it’s hard to get close to him.” There was a pause as she considered her next words. “What I’m doing isn’t creepy.” Oh, how lacking in self-awareness. “It’s not like I’m going to sell these photos or anything, they’re just for me—I like looking at his face.” Well intentioned, but weird sounding.

Soul frowned, taking a moment to consider her words. “I can’t really say I agree—with it being not creepy,” he added, then shook his head. He paused, glanced to the back doors that led to the staff room, “By the looks of it, doesn’t look like he’d agree either.”

Both Maka and Amber turned to follow his gaze, and sure enough, Haruto was lingering at the door, it held open by his foot, staring at their table. Though, a stare wouldn’t have been the right way to describe it, it was more like he was glaring at them. The young employee had likely noticed the commotion, not that it would have been hard to do with Amber being a bit on the loud side.

Flushing a deep red, Amber shoved her phone into the pocket of her apron, offering the two a quick, embarrassed goodbye before hurrying off to help one of her other tables, as if to pretend that none of that had happened. It would have come to no surprise if she got an earful from a manager later for her behavior.

Honestly? Maka felt sympathetic towards her, but not a lot. If she did get in trouble, Amber _did_ bring it on herself.

Even after Amber had resumed working, Haruto had remained at the door for a minute or two longer. His eyes followed Amber as she scampered from table to table, and then shifted back to stare at Soul and Maka for a few moments longer before finally slipping in to the other side of the door.

Maka waited until the door shut before looking to Soul. “Hey,” she began in a hushed voice. The weapon looked over to her, piece of bacon hanging out his mouth. “Did he feel… strange to you?”

Humming and swallowing his strip of bacon, Soul waited until he had chewed and swallowed before responding. “Gotta elaborate, Maka. What do you mean ‘strange’?” he asked. “He looked pretty normal to me, apart from the fashion.”

“I don’t really know how to put it. Something about his soul seemed off,” Maka admitted, and even now she could still sense his soul from within the building. It was human from what she could tell, but something felt _wrong_. “I can’t really describe it, but there was something different.”

Soul shrugged, and though he looked carefree, she could see the gears in his head turning. “I can’t really say anything stuck out to me. I can’t see souls like you, so I couldn’t really say.” She shook his head and then held out his last strip of bacon to her. “You could just be hungry and it’s messing with your perception.”

“Yeah, you might be right.” She didn’t really believe it, but, as odd as it had felt, it hadn’t come across as dangerous. Probably best to leave alone, for now.

They continued to eat, talking between bites in a voice low enough to not disturb the other customers. Occasionally Amber passed by their table to check up on them, to see if they needed anything else or if she could refill their drink. They suspected she might have been feeling a tad embarrassed by the earlier incident, but then again, maybe she wasn’t.

It was only when they had just about finished their breakfast that they interrupted.

Elijah Cain stood before them, dressed up in a casual suit and tie, his hair tied back as it had been yesterday, only this time the ponytail wasn’t as messy or loose. He wasn’t smiling, his eyes as cold as they had been the previous meeting, and at this point both Soul and Maka couldn’t help but wonder if he knew how to smile, or if his time as a cop had made him forget how.

“I thought we were supposed to be meeting you,” Soul began carefully, taking a drink of his coffee.

Elijah shrugged, looking all too unconcerned, “I saw you two as I was passing—not many people with white hair walking about, after all. Meeting you two here, as opposed to waiting for you two to find me, is quicker. We’ve a busy schedule ahead of us,” he explained. “I assume there’s not a problem with this?”

His words said one thing, but his tone was saying something entirely different, and it made the two bite back any complaint they might have had.

“Are we still on for meeting the Lewis family?” Maka asked, fishing through her bag for her wallet.

“Of course. We will head there right away, unless you two have found something in the files you read last night that you think needs to be investigated.”

Soul groaned, leaning back as he threw two fives onto the table for a tip while Maka got her card out. “Unfortunately, we haven’t found anything yet,” he confessed and scratched the back of his head. “Not that I really expected us to? You guys know these files front to back, it was pretty unlikely we’d find something you missed.”

“I figured. A fresh pair of eyes may not hurt, but sometimes there’s nothing new to be found,” Elijah nodded his head.

And with that, the two paid for their meals and then followed Elijah out of the café to where he had parked his car.

With them on the road and driving, Elijah nodded to a plain folder on the dashboard. “Go ahead and read through that,” he said as Maka reach over to grab it. “It’ll help you two prepare for the interview. It’s not an interrogation, or even an official questioning session, but there are still do’s and don’ts. This family has gone through a lot losing their daughter, and I don’t need you two stepping on any toes.”

“Relax, we’re not dumb,” Soul said, biting back a yawn as he looked out the window. “Be polite and respectful, we get that.”

“That’s good. At least I don’t need to worry about you two ruining the sense of trust between victims and officers,” Elijah didn’t even look at them as he spoke. “People aren’t that willing to talk and cooperate when they don’t feel like they can trust you. Can this family trust you?”

Maka bristled at the unspoken accusation, “Of course they can.”

“Then make sure to prove it.”

* * *

The drive wasn’t too long, fifteen minutes at best of winding turns and stoplights. They had just barely finished the pile of papers Elijah had given them on what to do and not do, what to say and to avoid, when they had pulled up to the house.

It was a simple, old-style brick townhouse with two floors plus what looked like an attic space at the top. There was a metal fence separating the property from the main sidewalk, with a gate situated across from the door of the house and one for each neighboring townhouse down the line. It was small, quaint even, a good home by the looks of it.

“Here we are,” Elijah said, adjusting his jacket after locking the car. “Be polite, and be careful of what kind of questions you want to ask.”

“We know, we know,” Soul groaned, as if Elijah wasn’t already treating them like they were incapable of doing this. He was getting a bit annoying at this point, but was careful to bite his tongue as he secured the case files under one arm.

The detective didn’t say anything, just walked past them, pushed open the gate and knocked on the door. Soul and Maka stood behind him, waiting patiently as they heard movement on the other side of the door.

A minute passed, and then another…and then when the door opened, it showed a middle aged woman with short, curly dark hair and tired eyes. “Ah… Detective Cain?” she said slowly as she looked at Elijah, as if trying to remember if that was his name or not.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Mrs. Lewis. Do you mind if we come in?” Elijah was polite as he spoke, nodding to the inside of the house as he gestured to Soul and Maka.

For her part, Mrs. Lewis hesitated a moment, but then pulled the door open all the way. “Of course, of course. You’ll have to forgive me, my husband isn’t home right now, he had to go in to work early.”

“That’s fine,” Elijah assured her with a compassionate smile. “As I said over the phone, we would just like to go over what you told us during the initial interviews—for these two. We’re hoping that with some fresh perspectives, we can find something we missed.”

They were lead to a sitting area with two couches facing one another. Elizabeth Lewis sat on one end, Elijah, Soul, and Maka on the other, with a low coffee table between them. Maka looked around the room as she sat down. Flowers, simple home decorations sitting on shelves, a few basic paintings hanging on the walls.

No family photos. No photos of Amanda. Perhaps it was just to painful a memory to keep up?

“—We could start at the beginning. The day Amanda went missing?” Elijah was speaking, though Maka had missed the beginning half as she snapped her head back to look at the detective, and then to the mother.

Mrs. Lewis put a hand to her mouth, frowning slightly. “It’s been a while, I don’t think I’d be able to provide an accurate recounting,” she warned, her voice soft.

Nodding his head, Elijah folded his hands over his knees. “It’s been two years, but I have little

“Just tell us what you can,” Maka said, offering her a sympathetic smile. “We can cross reference it with your previous testaments to fill in any potential gaps. But, please, just tell us everything you can remember.”

There was a moment of hesitation before the woman lowered her hand and gave a low nod. “Okay… okay…” another moment passed, passed as she took in a deep breath, as if to steady her nerves. “It was a school day—Amanda, she, she left early. She always did leave early in the mornings, before her father and I even went to work. We work late into the evenings most days, and that was one of them. I didn’t get home until after seven in the evening. She wasn’t home when I returned, and I thought she had possibly run to a neighboring convenience store for a snack. But then it got later and later and she still hadn’t come home.”

Mrs. Lewis hunched forward, bringing her hand to her mouth again. “That was the last day I ever saw my baby girl.”

“Why did you wait so long to call the police?”

All three turned to look over at Soul who had his attention focused on the files he was reading on his lap. He paused, lifting his head and letting his red eyes lock onto Mrs. Lewis.

“I’m sorry?” Elizabeth Lewis spluttered, matching his gaze with a glare. “What are you trying to imply?”

Soul shrugged, looking back down at the file he had been reading. “Well, it’s just that the day you listed her as being missing was the fifteenth, but you didn’t file a missing child report until the seventeenth,” he held that page of the file out for her to read. “I mean, I suppose it’s possible for the police to have put the wrong date, but it’s unlikely. So, I guess I just don’t understand why it would have taken you so long to report that your kid was missing.”

The woman looked absolutely offended at the accusations. She began to stand, “How dare you! Are you trying to suggest that I might have had something to do with it?” Mrs. Lewis demanded, her voice rising in pitch. “Just because of when I filed a report?”

Elijah cleared his throat, his face having returned to an impassive mask. “Ma’am. My colleague doesn’t mean any disrespect. But, the time frame does warrant suspicion and concern. We aren’t trying to accuse you of anything, but we would like to know why it took you so long to call the police.”

She huffed, unconvinced by his empty platitudes, but slowly sat back down, her arms crossed over her chest. “I assumed she was spending time with a friend. We had a fight in the morning, she left angry. It wasn’t uncommon for her to spend the night with a classmate when she was angry at us. That’s why it took so long for us to notice something was wrong.”

Things didn’t seem to line up and Maka furrowed her brow. “The school would have called you when she didn’t show up,” she pointed out.

“Amanda frequently skipped classes—it was one of the causes of our fights. Getting a call from school that she was absent was hardly unusual.”

Elijah spoke before Maka could follow up on that question with another, crossing one leg over the other. “You didn’t list any of her friends or close contacts when we first talked, do you think you could provide us with some names for people your daughter hung out with?” he asked patiently.

But Mrs. Lewis only shook her head. “Heavens! Amanda rarely spoke to us about her personal life as it was, what friends she had we rarely ever saw, let alone knew the names of,” she brushed off. “I would tell you if I knew, but I don’t know any of the kids she spent her time with.”

Maka was growing frustrated with this interview, so far they weren’t finding very little new information—if anything, the mother was telling them less information than what the case files provided. She glanced to Elijah and saw that his jaw had set into a firm line, not seeming to be happy with this either.

“Would it be okay if I check out her room while you continue talking?” Maka asked, her question directed to Elijah, but she looked at Mrs. Lewis all the same. “I would like to see if there was anything there that might be a clue.”

The mother had a frown, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I’m not sure how that will be any help,” she said slowly, but then shook her head, rethinking the refusal she had been about to give. “Her room is upstairs, the last door on the left.”

“Thank you,” Maka got up, bowing her head to the woman before making her way to the stairs, leaving Elijah and Soul to continue the interview.

When she got to the bedroom at the second floor, pushing it open, Maka was rather surprised by the layout.

It was a very bland room, especially for what would have been a twelve-year-old.

The walls were simple white. There weren’t any posters on the wall, nothing on the shelves or desks that suggested any interests. The desk was empty, a computer shut down on it. The bed made, white sheets and comforter. A blue rug on the middle of the floor. A closet door on one wall.

The room felt so empty, so…boring. Any other kid would have given the room as much life as possible. Maleko had.

Maka bit her lip as the thought crossed her mind. Maleko had lived in what had essentially been a dungeon repurposed as spare rooms for academy visitors. It was cold and dim, with a thin mattress on a metal frame, stone walls and floors. Yet, he had filled the room with so much life; covered the walls in drawings, had toys in every corner, he had even clawed into the stones to mark it as his.

This room felt like an office that doubled as a guest room.

A sense of unease filled her stomach as the thought came to mind, and with that, she got to work looking around, looking for something that might be a clue, no matter how old, something that could help tie Amanda to any of the other victims. Something that might suggest _why_ she had been abducted.

So, Maka worked. She searched both high and low, in every corner of the bedroom for something, anything. And she found quite a few things.

The furniture was new. While it wasn’t really easy to tell, Maka figured that it was bought after Amanda had vanished. There was nothing suggesting a kid might have ever used it. No stray pencil marks from a kid doing homework or drawing, no scratch marks on the wooden floor from the chair being pushed in and out. The bed, too, would have likely left scratch marks on the floor from the frame, or on the wall that it was against. There was nothing.

When she’d opened the closet, it was void of clothes, of hangars. All that was in there were a few large tote boxes full of miscellaneous things. Maka spotted wrapping paper stuffed in one, older window curtains in another. Simple enough things that wouldn’t necessarily be out of place in any room but a kids room. She would have expected to see clothes in the boxes, maybe Amanda’s old belongings kept stored away.

But, no, nothing of Amanda’s was in here.

Though, as Maka looked deeper, she did see something on the floor, a crack, maybe? Perhaps nothing, but there was an uneasy feeling inside of her that compelled Maka to investigate. She pulled the bins out of the closet and to the side so she could empty the space and see it fully.

What she saw were splatters of red staining the wooden floor, and scratches on the floor and walls.

Deep. Frequent.

_Old._

Nothing fresh, perhaps nothing newer than two years old.

Some of them looked like they had been from nails digging into the wood, others look like something else, something sharper, had dug in. On the closet door, there were a few cracks in the wood, as if from someone frequently banging on it from the inside, and surrounded by more claw marks.

What was going on in this house? What had been happening to Amanda Lewis?

The information was swirling in her head, all pieces to a puzzle that Maka was slowly putting together as she withdrew her phone from her pocket, taking careful pictures of the room, making sure to get every piece of the room to examine later. Clearly something bad was going on here, what else could the marks in the closet be from? Wouldn’t the police have noticed earlier, though?

“Maka.”

She had given a frightened jerk as she had been taking a photo of under the bed, nearly dropping the phone and succeeding in getting a very blurry image. Adjusting herself, she pushed herself onto her knees and looked to the doorway. Soul stood there, leaning against the frame.

He looked her up and down, then around the room. “Should I ask?”

“Not here,” Maka said, shaking her head and glancing past him. Not when others could hear, though perhaps they wouldn’t have heard—she sensed Elijah and Mrs. Lewis’ souls as still down stairs. But, she didn’t want to risk it. She wanted the safety and privacy of outside of the house before she explained her theory.

Though, could it be called a theory with such damning evidence in the room?

Soul nodded, not questioning her, trusting her, and pushed himself away from the frame. “Elijah says it’s time we wrap up and head back to the station. The two of us exhausted all our questions for her. Did you get everything you needed from the room?”

“I think so.” Plenty of photos. Plenty of mental notes to write down when she got a hold of some paper and a pen.

“Good.”

He led the way back down stairs. In the sitting room, Elijah and Mrs. Lewis were standing and still chatting, though it seemed to be more idle chatter than an interrogation this time. Simple platitudes and farewells.

Maka looked to her and felt her stomach churn. She had doubts since Soul brought up his line of questions, and now Maka felt a boiling sense of distrust and disgust at the woman and what Maka suspected she had done. Even so, Maka forced herself to hide those feelings away as she held a hand out to the woman.

“Thank you for letting me investigate the room, Mrs. Lewis,” She said with a smile.

There was a brief moment of hesitation as Mrs. Lewis looked at Maka before she took her hand, “You’re welcome,” she said pleasantly enough. “I hope you found something that might help.”

“Oh, I found plenty, thank you,” _I found the scars of what had been happening here_. Her grip on Mrs. Lewis’ hand tightened as the unsaid message passed, her eyes not leaving the mothers. She saw Mrs. Lewis’ eyes widen just a little, felt the quick rush of nervousness in her soul.

She smiled. “I’m glad, so long as you can bring my daughter back home.” She wasn’t afraid, or she refused to show it. She didn’t believe that they were going to find Amanda, did she? Perhaps she knew something more about the disappearance, or perhaps it was because of how long it had been it was reasonably unlikely that the girl was going to be found.

“Do call us if you find anything you think might be of use,” Elijah cut in with a curt nod. “And if you see anything you find suspicious. We’re going to find your daughter and bring in the ones who took her, you have my word.”

“Thank you, detective,” Mrs. Lewis said, letting go of Maka’s hand. “Do have a safe trip back, you three.” She guided them out of the house, offered them more empty goodbyes before closing the door behind them.

Maka wouldn’t be surprised if she went right up to Amanda’s room and got to work hiding the markings. Not that it would do any good, Maka had more than enough evidence.

She waited until they got into the car, with Elijah starting it up and driving off once they were all buckled up.

“Her responses to the questions were fairly basic,” Soul said, speaking before Maka could begin, trying to catch her up on the interview. “Couldn’t name anyone Amanda might have known that could have seen something, didn’t really have any specific places she hung out at when not at home.” He sighed, scratching the back of his head.

“It was like she barely even knew her own kid.”

That didn’t surprise Maka one bit. Even when the questioning first began, something about Elizabeth had struck her as indifferent. She seemed worried, but it didn’t seem…genuine. “I don’t trust her,” Maka said plainly.

“Yeah, I don’t really, either,” Soul agreed. “What kind of parent would wait a few days to even report their kid missing? That was messed up.”

Maka fished her phone out of her pocket, thumbed through the photos she had taken. “You saw Amanda’s room when you came to get me. It didn’t look like a room anyone lived it. It was void of life.”

“I mean, maybe they took all her stuff into storage, use it as a guest room now? It’s what it looked like. Though it feels heartless to do, like they don’t believe she’s ever coming back. I know it’s pretty unlikely, but, still.”

“That wasn’t the worst of it,” Maka shook her head, finding the photos of the closet and thrusted her phone to Soul. “These were old. Probably from when Amanda was living there.”

She waited as Soul took the phone and stared at the photo. Then, he took in a sharp breath of air. “That’s… if that’s from what I think—it’s fucked up.”

The blinker on the car was a dull sound in the background as Elijah turned onto another street, the car gently shifting between speeds, weaving around in traffic smoothly. “You saw the closet?” the detective asked.

Maka whipped her head around to stare at him. “You knew about it?” she asked, though it came out as more of a demand. _You knew? And nothing has been done about them?_

He gave a harsh laugh. “You’d have to be blind and dumb not to notice. We investigated her room when she went missing—it was obvious the furniture had been bought recently when we went in. No sign of wear on anything. That was the first red flag, and the closet wasn’t locked. Of course there had been some boxes there, their attempt to hide it, but it proved useless.”

“It’s not in the report,” Soul said carefully, if not curtly.

Elijah shrugged as he let a biker pass. “Our superiors at the time thought it better to leave it out, said that it was unrelated to the case.” The man spat as he said that, tightening his grip on the wheel. “I called him out on it, told him he was making a mistake, that it should be considered relevant. Clearly, my words meant nothing since, like you said, it’s not in the report. Besides, it wasn’t as if we could do anything. The closet alone isn’t solid proof that they were hurting her, and if we are going to try them for it, we need Amanda to testify.”

“With Amanda out of the picture, they will get the public’s sympathy while also avoiding being charged with child abuse,” Maka said slowly. “Is it possible they did something? That she might not even be involved with the other missing children’s case?”

“It’s a possibility,” Elijah confirmed. “But, right now we don’t have proof for one side or the other. Everything right now is just theories and guess work. That’s why it’s crucial that we get some kind of lead, something that can get us closer, not just for her, but for the other kids.”

Maka agreed. They needed to find something. They had to find these kids. They couldn’t just keep waiting and guessing, they had to start gaining ground, somehow, someway…

As if waiting for them, Elijah’s phone began to ring.

He grunted, carefully tugged it out of his pocket while he held onto the steering wheel with his free hand, a few finger taps to the screen, he tossed it onto his dashboard. “You’re on speaker. What is it?”

“Cain?” The voice was young, perhaps a little older than her. Shaky, too, nervous. “You need to get back to the precinct now.”

She couldn’t see his face, but Maka could just feel Elijah rolling his eyes. “We’re on our way don’t worry,” Elijah said, his tone of voice clearly annoyed by the call. “What happened that’s made my return so urgent, anyway?"

“Another kid went missing.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a possible break in the case for Maka and Soul, meanwhile Crona's group find themselves striking a wall.

“You think we’ll be able to find anything from him?” Maka asked.

She and Elijah stood on the opposite end of the interrogation room’s glass. Inside of the small room sat Soul, and across from him was a little boy of seven, looking scared and lost, shifting in his seat, and hugging himself tightly.

When they had been told another child has been abducted, and in Pocklington again, they had not expected a witness. There hadn’t _been_ a witness in the past abductions.

But there he was, a little boy, Alex Bailey, being consoled by the other cops as they waited for his mother to arrive, waited for Elijah, Maka, and Soul to arrive, sobbing over his sister who had been taken away from him.

Maka had wanted to be in the room with Soul, with the boy. But Elijah said that it would be better not to overwhelm Alex, and Soul said he wanted to give it a shot. So, here she was, separated from the two by a layer of glass, watching as Soul pushed a tray of cookies and a glass of soda to the boy.

“I can’t imagine what he’s going through,” Maka said softly, wrapping her arms around herself, fighting back a sudden chill. “To lose your sister, to watch stranger take her away. It’s traumatizing.”

“That’s why this is so important,” Elijah said, taking a sip of coffee he had one of the rookies grab him, staring, unwavering, at the boy. “He could very well be our break in finding these bastards.”

Perhaps he was. She could only hope that were the case, watching as Soul and the boy began speaking.

It hadn't taken more than an hour. Soul remained in that room, talking to the boy, getting him to slowly open up to him, to talk to him, and that was all they needed. Within an hour, they had heard everything. And then, only an hour more and everyone involved in the case was brought to a meeting room, sitting at the table as Elijah stood and walked.

“We have a link.”

It had been the words everyone there had been waiting so long to hear, had been searching so hard to find. They had a possible link between the missing children, a similarity—and yet it gave no relief, no satisfaction to any.

Elijah nodded to the photo pinned to the board and moved around the table, handing a file to each officer and the two DWMA guests while he spoke, a “Both the first and the most recent abductees were being abused. It’s possible that it’s just a coincidence, but we’re not going to disregard it just for that.”

It was only part of what Soul had managed to learn from the kid in the interrogation room.

The boy had gone to the candy store with his sister, Anna Bailey, age nine. They had been walking back, taking shortcuts, when a pair of men had approached them. They had told them they knew about their lives, said they wanted to take them someplace better, happier.

Anna had apparently known this was not right and tried to get the men to go away. The men tried to grab them, and the kids ran. Alex hid behind a dumpster, but they managed to get Anna, he had watched them drag her into a black sedan.

What else he had learned was what linked him and Anna to Amanda Lewis. His wrist and arm was scarred and bruised.

“Each of you are getting the files of different children,” Elijah continued on. “You’re going to dig as deep as possible, and then even deeper. If the kids were being beaten, you’re not going to get their parents to admit it.”

As Elijah brought the last files to her and Soul, Maka pushed herself up to stand, surveying the small group of cops and detectives. “We’re not just looking for signs of domestic abuse,” she added, earning a nod from the ginger detective. “Look into if they were being bullied at school, and how severely, or if there was a different figure in their life who was hurting them. Were they suffering? Why?”

“It’s possible our suspects think they’re saving these kids,” Elijah continued, standing at the head of the table, looking down at them all with a narrowed gaze. “They think they’re the heroes here and that we’re the villains. If that is the case, then the chances the kids are still alive is a lot better than it had been before—they are unlikely to want to hurt the kids.”

One officer raised his hand, Elijah nodded and the man—Officer Wilkins, Maka recalled—stood up. “That’s not necessarily the case, though, is it?” he said slowly, eyes locked unwaveringly on Elijah’s. “Angels of Death types believe they are doing good by saving their victims and ending their suffering by killing them. Look at the Robles case of ’07. He murdered children he believed were being abused and thought he was saving them.”

There was a quiet burst of murmurs as people around the table spoke. Elijah silenced them all with a wave of his hand.

“You’re right, Wilkins. We can’t be sure that this isn’t another Robles,” he agreed. “But personally I would rather hang on to hope that the kids are still alive, I won’t force any of you to do the same. We simply don’t know what they are doing after kidnapping them, I merely want to hope for the less grizzly option.”

That seemed to be enough and Wilkins sat down with a nod of his head. Elijah looked around the table once more. “Any other questions? Comments?”

“What are we going to do with the kid we found?” an older, plumper woman said, she reminded Maka a little of Auntie back at the academy. “We can’t really keep him away from his mother forever.”

Maka found herself nodding at the woman’s words, she wasn’t wrong. “Because Alex is our only witness, and due to the possibility of him still being a target, he will remain in joint custody of the police and DWMA for the time being,” she explained. That should be enough to pacify any complaints, as the reasons seemed simple enough; keep the boy in their security to keep him safe and in case he remembered something. It would also keep him away from his mother as social workers investigated her and his family for abuse charges.

Maka just hoped that it would be enough. She wanted to get the boy away from that terrible place, and she was determined to rescue his sister too.

“The kid will be fine,” Elijah cut in. “You guys all have your files. Read them. Track down everyone who knew your kids, even the ones not listed. Check in with the neighbors, classmates and so on. Look into every little detail, nothing is too small or insignificant, got it?”

There was a chorus of ‘yes, sir!’ from around the room as everyone got to work.

Papers flipped, pen against paper, quiet talking as calls were made. The officers were quick to get to work, Maka noted, already diving headfirst into their cases, devoting every bit of attention they had to reading and planning. It filled her with a sense of…pride. Pride of being a part of this team, even if she and Soul were technically the new ones. Even so, seeing the others get to work so quickly and so hard filled her with determination as she flipped open her own file to see who she had been given.

Amanda’s face stared back at her.

Maka’s smile slipped as she looked at the file, at the child, feeling something twist in her gut.

A chair scrapped against the floor beside her. “I decided it was better to keep you and Soul here rather than sending you two to separate parts of the Yorkshire area,” Elijah explained, having seemingly noticed her reaction to the file. “If something happens, I’m assuming you two want to be together. So you’ll be overseeing the Pocklington cases with me.”

“I see,” Maka breathed, nodding her head, “Thanks. For considering Soul and I’s feelings. You’re right, we wouldn’t want to be split up.”

The unit got to work rather quickly, going over their files, looking up on databases, making calls to other precincts, arranging for trips down to their chosen towns. Soul and Maka worked together compiling a list of places to check out that they knew their kids frequented, arranged meetings with teachers, made a list of peers to interview.

It wasn’t hard, but the hours slipped by, the sun quickly rising and setting, the day going by them in a blur. Several of the cops had left, gone home to pack and rest before leaving town in the morning, but a small number remained.

Maka was still focused on her file, having gone through papers upon papers of notes she had made, things to investigate on the morrow when Soul left, to hit a nearby convenience store to grab the group something to eat. She’d given him little more than a quick thank you before returning to her papers.

The local middle school, that’s where she wanted to start tomorrow. She’d go to the middle school, speak with the teachers and staff, find out who some of Amanda’s closest classmates were and then to question them. Find out from her peers where she hung out at, and then ask the people who frequented those spots.

 _Someone_ had to have seen something.

If both victims were being abused, then the kidnappers knew, they were watching. And they must have first found the victims somewhere before they began their observing and planning. You don’t just wake up one day _knowing_ who you are kidnapping and where to find them.

This was the first lead this case has gotten in two years, Maka was going to make sure that it didn’t go to waste.

* * *

Soul had made rather quick work getting to the convenience store. The sandwiches, teas and other snacks bought and bagged. It had been rather generic, uninteresting.

It only became interesting when Soul was leaving and saw a familiar customer doing the same.

“Hey,” Soul greeted before he could stop himself, watching as the young man froze and slowly turn around. Green eyes bore into red, brows furrowed, and Soul was sure he was scowling under that mask of his. “You’re, ah, Haruto, right?”

The café employee waited a few moments before responding. “Yeah,” it was curt, and he turned around, leaving the store.

Maka had said she felt something off about the guy, hadn’t she? And now that Soul was seeing him up close, there was something about him that… felt odd. He just could not put his finger to it. But perhaps that was what drove Soul quickly followed after the man, even if it meant not going right back to the precinct.

To his surprise, Haruto was a fast walker, a _very fast_ walker. When the store doors closed behind Soul, the guy was already almost at the end of the block, forcing the weapon to _sprint_ to catch up. He swore Haruto sped up even more when he realized Soul was following. But, he did manage to reach the guy, matching his pace and walking at his side, between him and the street.

“Sheesh, you sure know how to book it,” Soul chuckled, adjusting his grip on the plastic bag in his hand. He glanced at Haruto, he had a few bags in one hand, and Soul noticed cups of ramen, bread, and all sorts of cheap foods. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to go to the grocery store for all of it? Probably cheaper.”

Haruto remained silent, but Soul felt the heat in his glare.

Walking together, Soul took the moment to look at him from a closer position. The guy did not look particularly attractive, not that he looked unattractive, either. As far as Soul could tell, he seemed pretty average looking, at least from what little of the guy’s face that Soul could see. Who knew, perhaps he had the most amazing smile ever seen on Earth, and that was why he had to hide his face. Not that Soul could picture Haruto as much for smiling.

He was a good few inches shorter than Soul—probably more around Maka’s height—his frame narrow, thin, probably fresh in his twenties. He was dressed in simple jeans and a black zip-up sweater. Just like at the café, he still had his lower face covered by a mask and this time had black latex gloves covering his hands. Soul could see familiar bags under the guys eyes, the kind that he knew personally from not only himself, but from Crona and Maka—a sign that this guy was running on barely any sleep and had been for a long time.

“So,” Soul began, earning another side-eyed glare when he broke the silence. “I’m—”

“Soul.”

The weapon paused and turned his head fully to look at Haruto, mouth hanging slightly open before he found the mind to close it. Had he said his name before? No, not at any time where Haruto would have heard it. This was their first time speaking, too. “How’d you know?”

Haruto gave a chuckle, it was hollow, sarcastic. “Ya’ advertise everywhere that yer a member of the DWMA with the Death emblem your mate an’ you carry on yer clothes,” he pointed out, giving a pointed look to the skull on the right sleeve of Souls jacket. “Once ya’ know that much, it ain’t that hard. You guys are easy to Google—there ain’t that many albinos in yer little gang.”

The way that Haruto spoke, there was an acidic contempt in the words. Either he did not like Soul, or, more likely, he _really_ did not like the DWMA. A lot of people harbored resentment towards the academy and its member, it was something Soul had come to realize a while back, a resentment that grew more prominent after the war with the Acolytes. Or, perhaps it was that people were more _open_ about their distrust.

“I guess that makes sense,” Soul murmured as he rubbed the back of his neck. “And you’re Haruto? That’s what I think the waitress called you. Haruto…?”

He glared at Soul, but Soul just met his gaze with his own, steady, waiting. If Haruto wanted to play the silent stoic, well, Soul could wait his silence out.

There was an anger in those green eyes, a held in a glass jar. Soul wonder how much it would take for that rage to break free, wondered if he should even risk tempting fate—he didn’t know just what this guy could do if he pressed the wrong buttons.

Eventually, Haruto heaved a sigh, shaking his head and muttering a string of curses under his breath. “Haruto Arakawa. Ya’ happy now?”

“As a clam in high water.”

Haruto rolled his eyes and came to a stop at a curb-side bus stop, tapping his foot impatiently against the sidewalk and shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, letting the bags hang heavy off his wrists. He looked at Soul again, eyes narrowed. “Precinct’s the other way. Or ya’ tryin’ to follow me all the way home?”

“It’s tempting, but I’d better not. My partners might misunderstand, think I’m cheating if I go home with you,” Soul responded with a toothy smile and small laugh.

That got a raised brow, the heat of his glare faltering as confusion flashed in Haruto’s eyes. “Partners…ya’ mean meister? Ya got more than one meister? That’s just fuckin’ weird.”

Ah, him and his big mouth. With a sheepish shrug, Soul once again adjusted his grip on the bag, feeling the plastic digging into the skin of his fingers and the weight starting to make his digits ache. Hopefully, the cheap plastic didn’t tear. “No, no. I only have the one meister. I meant partners like, ah, relationship. Boyfriend, girlfriend, that sort of thing?” he said, hoping that it made sense, though it didn’t really look like Haruto got it yet. “I’m in a throuple.”

“The fuck’s a throuple?”

Was… was this guy dense? He seemed like he was simply just an angry fellow, but now Soul was wondering if he was a little naïve, too. Most people knew what a throuple was, right? From media and shit. Polygamy wasn’t exactly a new notion. Or maybe people here didn’t say ‘throuple’?

“A three-way relationship?” Soul tried again, turning to face Haruto as they waited for the bus to arrive. “Polyamory? When you and two others are in a romantic relationship?”

Haruto made a face and shook his head. “Sounds complicated as fuck, an more troublesome than it’s worth. Havin’ one S-O sounds bad enough, an here ya are havin’ two? The fuck?”

Laughing, Soul shrugged once more. “Yeah, well, when you’re in love, you don’t really care about how troublesome it might be,” and he did love them. Crona and Maka he loved them both, more than there were words to describe. “What about you? You been in a relationship before? High school crushes? College romances?”

Haruto glared at him, and Soul realized that maybe he didn’t want to talk about his own personal life. Which seemed kind of unfair since Soul just told him about his love life, but, whatever. So, instead he decided to try something else. “So,” A few people walked past them as they stood there waiting. “How long have you been living here?”

There was a long pause, Haruto glaring at him and remaining silent, with Soul watching him patiently and expectantly. Finally, he grumbled, cursed some more. “Don’t know why it’s any of yer business,” He groused. “Probably around three an’ a half years.”

“Ah,” Soul nodded. “Right before the kidnappings began.”

He was sure that Haruto wanted to smack him, the rage in his eyes were growing fiercer with every second of time Soul kept taking, ever question he kept asking. “Was this unwanted followin’ all yer elaborate way to interrogate me?” he asked. “Am I a suspect or somethin’?”

“No, no,” Soul quickly assured him. “I was just speaking out loud. But, since you have been here since the kidnappings started,” Soul paused to mentally find the right wording, the one that might irritate the guy the least. “Have you ever noticed anything that seemed suspicious?”

“Besides an annoyin’ guy followin’ me from a convenience store all the way home, who won’t stop jawin’ on about shit?” Haruto snapped back, almost shoving against Soul with his shoulder. “No, I’ve seen nothin’.”

“Damn, you’re an aggressive guy. What’s got you in such a hurry, anyway? Got someone waiting for you?” It was mostly sarcastic, with this guy’s attitude, Soul couldn’t really imagine him having anyone waiting for him. But, then Haruto stiffened, and that fury seemed to increase to the point that Soul realized he had actually hit the nail. “Wait, you do, don’t you?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your fuckin’ business.”

“Ouch. Language.”

“Bite me.”

What did that Amber chick see in him? This guy was as unpleasant as they came. Soul rolled his eyes, “So, who’s waiting for you? I’m guessing that’s why you’re so angry right now.” Not that he could imagine that someone actually enjoyed Haruto’s presence enough to wait for him to come home.

He glared at Soul. “My lil’ sister, who is probably fuckin’ starvin’ right now cause yer wastin’ all my time.”

Okay, a little sister made a lot more sense than any girlfriend or boyfriend did. And _Soul_ was wasting his time? Even if he wasn’t here, Haruto would have still been waiting for the bus, so that was just rude. But he kept that to himself, saying it out loud would have just annoyed the other man all the more.

“A little sister? I hope she’s doing okay, it’s probably scary for her with the recent kidnappings going on,” Soul said, and then he added, quieter; “Probably not the safest to be alone.”

Haruto snorted, “I’m not worried. Trust me; she’ll be fine.”

“Oh?” Soul raised a brow. “What’s got you so confident?”

The bus was pulling up now, and Haruto had turned to face Soul, looking directly at him. His eyes were cold. An icy remorselessness that felt so _wrong_ and Soul couldn’t understand _why_.

“I’ll kill anyone who fuckin’ tries.”

And with that, he climbed onto the bus and flipped Soul off.

Soul was left watching as the bus left, processing what Haruto had said. Something about the way he looked—Soul wasn’t sure the guy was kidding. “Well, that’d be a quick solution to the kidnapping problem, then,” he muttered, imagining the young man actually murdering numerous kidnappers. It didn’t seem like an implausible feat from what he’d seen of him and his temper. “But, yikes, he’s got some anger.”

Just as he was running his hands through his hair, contemplating the last ten minutes of his conversation, he felt his phone vibrating in his back pocket as a familiar ring filled the air. Pulling it out, Maka’s name greeted him on the screen. A quick swipe and he brought the phone to his ear.

“Yo.”

“Soul, you okay?” Maka asked. “You’ve been gone

for a while, everything okay?”

“Ah, yeah, sorry. Ran into someone and just started talking,” Soul answered, already starting his walk back to the precinct, noticing how numb his fingers had grown. “I’ll tell you about it when I get back, think you might want to hear.”

* * *

Crona frowned, shifting awkwardly, the dying lights of the day setting over the trees.

Beside them, Detective Barrichello sharply breathed in, crossing his thick arms over his chest, staring down at the coroners, local cops, and their fellow Interpol agents as they scavenged the area. They stood at the top of a small dip in the earth, at the creak that flowed through it, with crowds of civilians being held back by tape and cops behind them.

Barrichello sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Joggers found him. All the teeth were pulled out, the skin of his fingers and toes removed” he said, shaking his head, his expression of frustration. “We can’t get an I.D. on who the victim even is this time. Even the face has been disfigured beyond recognition.”

“Do we… do we know if it’s the same killer?”

The detective chuckled, “If it’s not, then it’s a damn good copycat,” he said. “We’ve got confirmation on a new…episode… from our guy, that coupled with a body? We will need to examine the recording to know if the wounds match, but the guy’s heart was removed. No one outside of the investigations knew about that part, not even those listening to his podcasts knew he removed the hearts.”

Crona grimaced, reaching over to grasp their arm tightly. They had seen the body; it was impressively horrifying. Each wound had been inflicted with purpose, with thoughtful consideration, nothing like the almost instinctive violence of the Kishin eggs, it was not erratic. The wounds were delivered not unlike an artist making brushstrokes on a canvas.

Whoever this killer was, Crona was afraid. They were afraid of him, of what he could do. He was a monster, the kind of monster you feared hid in the closet or under the bed, the kind that had no face or body, but you feared all the same.

They wished that Soul were here, or that Maka was here, if they had at least one of them, then Crona knew they would feel a little braver. But, no, that would be selfish. The two had a mission of their own that they were working on, missing kids they needed to find, abductors to stop. Crona couldn’t take them away from that.

They were too focused on their own thoughts that they didn’t notice that Captain Deneuve was approaching them, pulling the yellow crime scene tape up to ducking under it.

“Crona,” she said sharply, causing the meister to flinch. “Walk with me.”

Looking helplessly at Barrichello, the man just smiled and nudged them over to the captain who was already walking away. _Just suck it up and follow her!_ Ragnarok snapped from within their head, their blood bubbling, a warning sensation of what was to come. But it didn’t, Ragnarok remained in their veins, in their head.

Swallowing hard, Crona stumbled after Deneuve.

She said nothing for a good while, remaining silent as they passed cops, leading Crona away from the crowds and reporters looking for answers.

It wasn’t until they were well away from the earshot of others that Deneuve heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m going to have to ask you something personal, kid,” she said, turning to stare Crona down, arms crossed over her chest. She looked imposing. Terrifying. “I know your past, your previous affiliation. Don’t worry, I didn’t go snooping. It was all there in the file the academy sent me to review before accepting your aid.”

Crona shifted, trying to make themselves small, as small as possible when she mentioned their past. It was still difficult for some to look past. Their mother was a witch. She infiltrated the DWMA, tried to revive the Kishin, caused so many bad things to happen, hurt so many people. It was difficult for Crona when people brought her up, brought their past up.

Blood rushed through their body, Crona felt the familiar tearing sensation in their skin as Ragnarok emerged, resting his small body against their head. “Yeah?” he demanded, his voice defensive, “What about it?”

The captain held her hands up, “I was hoping your knowledge would come in handy,” she said. “How quickly he is able to get around, so suddenly and at short notice, going from one nation to another; it’s likely that our killer is affiliated with the witches in some way.”

“I… I was thinking that too,” Crona admitted quietly. Should they have mentioned it earlier? But, Captain Deneuve didn’t seem upset by their admittance, instead, she was just nodding her head in thought.

Bringing a hand to her chin, she rubbed at it, looking down to the ground in thought. “Did you ever come across anyone who possessed the ability to possibly teleport?” she asked. “Or anything similar?”

Crona thought, they really, really thought hard, tried racking their head over every witch and sorcerer they had met when serving Lady Medusa. But they came up with nothing. They couldn’t think of anyone who had any sort of magic that could have made this possible. In defeat, they hung their head low and gave it a solemn shake.

“No… I’m sorry.” Crona mumbled.

“Hey, it’s okay, can’t expect someone to know _everyone_ ,” Deneuve said and shrugged. “I figured I would ask, and I didn’t want to risk making a scene with too many people around.”

Lifting their head, Crona looked fretfully at the captain. “This is the second kill in Brazil, I don’t—he might already be somewhere else.”

The captain had a look of frustration cross her face. “I know,” she said, her voice sharp, but not at them. “I know… we have to keep an eye out. The police already know to contact us if they find a body matching the M.O. of our killer, and we’ve got people keeping track of the Podcasts, waiting to let us know when he has a new one go live.”

It was all they could do for now. Continue to investigate the bodies and scenes, and wait for him to act again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interpol have a press conference over the Podcast Killer, and someone else gets an unwanted call from family.

The room was full of nervous chatter in the crowd of police and reporters all jammed together in a simple briefing room. Crona felt awkward, unsafe, claustrophobic surrounded by so many people at once. Ragnarok’s presence as he rested on their head was a rare comfort in that moment. While they still felt frightened, as if they could suffocate at any moment, Ragnarok’s silence was calming.

Crona held themselves tightly as they stood on one side of the stage, watching as Captain Deneuve talked with the towns police chief. They had finished their investigation of the latest victim that morning, or as much as they could from the body alone, and in the following hours, the Interpol team and Crona had been working tirelessly to compare this victim to the past ones.

They had found all there was to find for now, and the captain had decided they had a working profile they could release to the press.

She finished her talk and had made her way to the podium at the front of the stage. Reporters and police alike fell silent as she cleared her throat and checked the microphone.

“Hello, everyone,” Deneuve greeted calmly. “As all of you are aware, I am part of Interpol, and my team and I are investigating a string of homicides that have been crossing international borders. Though we have not yet caught him, we believe we have a profile on who to look out for.”

Several of the reporters started asking questions, but they were ignored. Crona tried to make themselves smaller, and Barrichello nudged them on the shoulder in what had been an attempt at comfort.

This was important. Not only were there reporters for papers, but there were news anchors recording this live. And not just for the nation of Brazil, no, there were reporters representing various countries in the room, and a handful of translators with them. This issue wasn’t just a South American one, no, this was a killer who had the ability to be a danger to a person of any country, this was an international criminal and the whole world needed to know what to look out for, _who_ to look out for.

The captain waited for the chatter to stop, raising her hand to signal for silence, and only when the talking ceased did she continue. “We believe him to be young, in his twenties or thirties. It’s not easy to lure in as many people as he has, as such he will be a very charismatic person, likely physically attractive, enough so that he can make those around him lower their guards,” she explained.

Barrichello took a step forward, “He’s incredibly confident. We can hear it in his voice during the podcasts. He knows what he’s doing and he isn’t afraid he’s going to get caught,” the detective said, making gestures with his hands as he spoke. “He wants recognition, that’s why he streams these podcasts while he kills, he wants the world to know what he’s doing. It’s possible the man is a narcissist.”

The detective glanced to Crona, silently urging them to speak up, but the words were caught in their throat. Ragnarok held tighter to their head as Crona took a fearful step back.

Deneuve didn’t let the silence last for long. She brought the reporters attention back to herself as she picked up where Barrichello had left off. “Our killer is highly intelligent, and likely enjoys flaunting it. Like the murders, it’s a way to receive recognition, to be noticed,” she said, looking at the various reporters. “We also must keep in mind that, along with intelligence, when you take into account how many nations we know he’s been to; our killer is most likely multilingual. However, we can assume from the podcasts that English is his primary language.”

“We believe it’s safe to presume that he’s white, but that may not necessarily be true,” Barrichello said. “We also want to keep in mind that the first five confirmed murders were in Wales; as such it is safe to assume he is possibly Welsh.”

Crona pressed themselves closer to the wall as the two leading agents on this case continued, back and forth, to list traits that the team had come to find between bits of information on the podcasts and on the victims. He was very meticulous. He treated the murders as a form of art. Each thing he did was deliberate, precise. There were so many things they had learned, but very few that could narrow down a pool of suspects into something manageable.

The reporters were devouring every word. Jotting it down, saving it on recorders, on film, hanging on everything they said.

As Deneuve was wrapping up, one reporter stood up. He held his tape towards the stage, staring them down. “How is he able to get to different nations so quickly between the murders?” the reporter asked. Crona squinted and saw ‘Dave’ written on his nametag. “Does he own his own private jet or something? It should be impossible to travel so quickly, so frequently.”

Deneuve and Barrichello looked to each other, as if trying to decide how to answer, when Crona found themselves speaking up.

“We think they’re working with a witch.”

Their words had been quiet, but it was loud enough to get several to look at them. Crona backed away just a bit more, fearful. Dave stared at them, turning the tape to Crona. “I’m sorry? What did you just say?”

Crona wanted to stay silent, pretend nothing happened, but Ragnarok dug his knuckles in hard, “Go on, speak up you baby,” he hissed.

Swallowing, Crona took a nervous step forward. “We think that… that the killer has the aid of a witch. That he’s using magic to travel,” they told the reporters, grabbing onto their arm nervously. “We… don’t have proof, of course, it’s just a-a working theory, but it makes the most sense.”

There was a hush that fell over the room, a silence that grew into nervous whispers. A witch could be involved. Witches were dangerous. A serial killer was bad enough, but one that had the aid of a witch? That made this all the worse. That was why the DWMA had involved themselves, wasn’t it? Why else would a meister be tasked with something like a serial killer when it wasn’t even a Kishin Egg?

Then, like a bottle bursting, the room was in an uproar. Reporters were talking over one another, trying to ask question, trying to seek answers. The possibility of magical aid had not told to the public before, and now this changed everything of what they knew, change the possibilities.

In a sense, it meant that no one was safe.

Had Crona been wrong to say what they had said? Should they have kept it a secret, waited until Captain Deneuve decided to let the people know? Perhaps this would make things worse, perhaps it would cause a panic that would make the killer harder to find, give him more targets, perhaps—

Crona shivered, trying to back away from the whispers and the talk. Trying to disappear from the room. Their saving grace was that neither Barrichello nor Deneuve looked annoyed by what they had said, they looked to the chaos of reporters as if it were normal. Perhaps it was.

The older two did most of the talking after that, answering questions the reporters had. Several of them were yelling, wanting to know why it was taking so long when it had been almost four years now, perhaps even longer, since the killer first appeared. Wanting to know more about the DWMA’s involvement. Was Crona the only agent sent to assist in this matter? Were there more? Why weren’t there more?

The longer that Crona stood there, the more that Crona knew they wanted to go somewhere else. Back home. To their apartment, to the police station. Somewhere safe.

They had begun to black out the rest, too wrapped up in their own thoughts that they ignored the world around them, and were startled when they were dragged back in to it.

“We believe,” Captain Deneuve said, having move to stand beside Crona, placing a hand on the small of their back, “that with the aid of the DWMA, we will be able to make considerable distance in putting a stop to these murders. It will take time and a lot of work, but we will catch him and make him pay for his crimes, and the DWMA will help in whatever way they can, I can promise you that.”

Most of the reporters had calmed down by then, the chatter died back down to whispers. But, one reporter slowly stood up, an aging man in his forties with greying hair. He looked to the detectives and then on Crona. “I’ve got a question,” he said in a gruff voice, his eyes not looking away from the meister. “Why should we trust the DWMA?”

There was a pause, “I’m sorry?” Crona didn’t know who said that, it could have been themself for all they knew.

“How,” the reporter repeated, his gaze locked on Crona’s still, his gaze challenging, “can we trust the DWMA?”

Crona remembered the speeches that flooded the web ten years prior, the protests that filled the streets after the war, the whispers and doubt that seemed to seed itself into all the souls. The anger—not hate, not disgust, but anger—that seemed to come from so many.

They looked to the floor, unable to meet the challenge.

* * *

The room was small. Haruto lounged on the floor, one hand on the low coffee table, the laptop buzzing with life, the video quietly playing. The room was mostly empty, sparse in belongings. Everything owned dirt cheap. A minimalistic household to the very core.

Haruto frowned, his mask on the table as he absentmindedly played with it. His eyes remained on the laptop, watching the press conference that had been posted to YouTube. He didn’t really _care_ about what was going on, but it provided him something to do, something to focus on.

It kept his mind off of other things.

Still… they were talking about that international serial killer. As the two detectives talked about the past victimology, about what they believed the man to be like, and Crona brought up how he might be associated with the witches, Haruto felt anxiety bubble up, suffocating him as his mind thought to all the places the man had been. He hadn’t struck Yorkshire…yet… There was already heavy investigations going on in the area, if he came to Yorkshire, that’d bring more cops…more…meisters and weapons.

Haruto hated the DWMA, he hated them any everyone affiliated with them. Heroes of justice, protectors of man? A load of lies! They were a military group that put themselves above national laws. They trained children to fight, they killed children, orphaned children, ruined everything they touched.

And now there were two of Death’s servants out here in Pocklington. He had recognized them as such when he had entered his place of work just the other day, saw the two standing by that annoying waitress Anna—or was it Amy?—saw it in their eyes. It took only one look and he felt raw hate fill him, so much so that he wanted to throw up.

Then the weapon caught him at the convenience store and wouldn’t leave him alone, insisting on walking with him and waiting with him at the bus stop, insisted on talking with him. Haruto humored him, had hoped that if he was rude enough that Soul would go away. It didn’t work. Just being next to him made him sick, Haruto had almost thrown up on the spot, but through sheer force of will he had held it back.

It didn’t make him feel any better, though.

He hoped that the kidnappings were resolved soon, for nothing else but to have these two out of his hair, so he can walk the streets and not risk seeing them, without feeling angry and hateful and disgusted just from seeing them.

Haruto liked Pocklington _because_ it rarely saw the DWMA. But now between serial killers and kidnappings, that paradise was shattering.

There were no words that described how he felt for them, not even he could fully understand how he felt. He hated the academy, what it stood for, but he didn’t hate those who fell victims to the propaganda and succumbed to their ‘normal’. Well, he didn’t hate _most_ of them.

He could respect them wanting to go after those who were bad. In a sense, the DWMA were a type of police, after all. Just, a form of police that did not care about nation borders or individual laws, viewing itself above the mortal rules. They did try to do good, they did try to stick to only hunting those who were bad, who were evil.

The problem that Haruto had was that they had a very black and white view on what consisted as ‘evil’. It was as if the circumstances of a sin didn’t matter. That was what Haruto despised. Death would have allowed for the slaughter of children if he decided they were bad, not even allowing them the chance to grow up to be better. No, no, better to nip it in the bud, to not even risk the chance it may go wrong, to not even try to guide souls that had gone astray on the path of the good.

It was bullshit. His only comfort on that being that Haruto knew he wasn’t alone in that opinion. Within the last decade, people had become more outspoken regarding their criticism towards the DWMA, and if the news was the be believed, the number of enrollments had been steadily decreasing, too.

Good. They don’t need an army of children, they’ve plenty of adults to do their work. Let the children be children, enroll at normal schools, study normal courses, make friends and live a safe, normal life. They don’t need to be soldiers fighting for the Grim Reaper when they’re not old enough to drink.

“G’morning, brother.”

His thoughts were broken, Haruto turned his head to see the yawning girl rubbing sleep from her eyes walking out of the single bedroom their shared apartment had. The cold hatred dissolved into something warmer, affectionate.

Face settling into a small smile, Haruto scooted back and patted his lap. His sister quickly climbed on and nestled against him, still wrapped in the web of sleepiness as she stared blearily at the laptop screen.

“Don’t think it can be called ‘mornin’’ anymore, Bea,” Haruto chuckled, running his fingers through her dark hair. “Almost noon.”

Beatrice huffed, broken by another yawn. “So what? Not like I’ve anywhere to be.”

“Fair, fair.”

They sat like that in peaceful silence for a few moments longer before Beatrice looked to the screen once more, to the video that was still playing. “Whatcha watching?”

“S’dumb news segment. Apparently Interpol made a statement on that Podcast killer, or whatever he’s been gettin’ called. All over international news,” Haruto answered with a lazy shrug. “Ya want I can change it to somethin’ you’d enjoy. News is probably pretty borin’ for ya.”

“Nah, I wanna see this,” Beatrice said, shaking her head and swatting his hands away when he had reached towards the laptop.

His chest tightened, a frown finding its way back to his face. “Ya got peculiar tastes Bea, real peculiar,” he decided, earning a giggle from the girl. “Shouldn’t ya be more interested in watching stuff like _My Lil’ Pony_ or _Glee,_ like other fourteen-year-olds?”

To that, Beatrice squirmed so she could face him and stuck her tongue out at Haruto. “They’re _boring_! This drama is fun. It’s True Crime in the truest form!”

He hummed, seeing no point in arguing. So, he leaned back, absentmindedly listening to the news statement while Beatrice watched with apt attention. They had moved on to letting the reporters ask questions. Were there any similarities in victimology? No, the killer seemed to be the omnivore type. Any pattern in where he goes? No, the killer had no discernable pattern at the moment. Why can’t Interpol track him through his podcasts? He’s using a program that makes it impossible to track.

It was bland, basic. Questions with answers they should already know. Crona remained quiet, only speaking a few times. Ragnarok swore at a reporter numerous times. By the time the video was done, it was obvious that the agents didn’t have any lead.

Haruto sighed and the video autoplayed into a speech the Prime Minister made last month. Bea crawled out of his lap, talking about how she was hungry, and Haruto allowed himself to leaned completely back until he was laying on the ground.

He tilted his head, watching Beatrice hum as she moved around the apartments small kitchenette area. “Careful if yer usin’ the stove,” he warned. Last time, Bea managed to set her eggs on fire. He didn’t feel like dealing with fires today. Fires were tiresome.

She smiled, “Don’t worry, I’m just making toast and cereal.”

“Ah.”

He didn’t say much after that, letting his gaze drift upward to the ceiling. There were stains left by the old tenant. A spiderweb in the top corner, the spider wrapping a fly up. The ceiling fan spun in lazy circles. He frowned, trying to find his energy, his will, but he found neither, remaining on the floor.

“I got today off from the café,” he said when Beatrice returned, settling down on the floor and setting her brunch on the coffee table beside the laptop. He watched as she flipped through the videos, finding a let’s play for some video game. “I mean, I still gotta work tonight, didn’t get lucky enough t’get off at the bar.”

“That’s fine,” Bea smiled at him, putting a spoonful of Cheerios in her mouth. “I get the whole day with you then. I like it better that way, anyway.”

Haruto found his smile returning. “I can go out and rent us some movies to watch. We can go to the park,” he saw her pale, “Or we can just stay in here. Not gonna make ya leave when ya don’t wanna.”

“Movies sound good,” Beatrice said. “Can we get Disney ones?”

“Of course. The older ones, right?” She nodded, Haruto smiled a bit more, pushing himself to his feet with great effort. “Here, you keep eatin’. I’ll make a quick trip ta the video store. Pass me my mask, will ya?”

She handed it to him, and he took a pair of black latex gloves from the box closest to him. “Don’t take too long!” Bea said, giving him a hug, wrapping her arms around his waist, “I get lonely when you’re not around.”

And there was that guilt biting away at him from within. Carefully, he knelt down to plant a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll be back quick as can be, don’t ya worry. Just gotta hope the busses don’t delay, an if they do, I’ll walk,” he promised her, standing back up, listening as Bea bid him goodbye and told him to be safe.

He pulled his mask on, making sure it covered his lower face, made sure nothing was show. He slid the gloves on, feeling them snap against his wrists, feeling the layer of protection between his hands and the world. His shoes were put on and laced up, his jacket zipped up tight, a wallet and phone in his pocket, and he was out the door, locking it behind him. That’d keep unwanted visitors out, and Bea would be able to leave whenever she wanted by unlocking it on her side.

* * *

He was careful as he walked, kept his head down to avoid attention, didn’t linger anywhere. He didn’t walk to slow, he didn’t walk too fast, everything he did was to draw as little attention as possible, to remain unnoticed. Haruto didn’t like being noticed, didn’t want people staring at him, watching him.

Keeping his eyes on the ground, he only looked up enough to keep from walking into anyone. Haruto knew the route to the video store by heart, he could get there blindfolded. So, he kept his gaze downward, kicking a stray rock on the sidewalk.

Thankfully, there were only a few people out and about during that time of day. Seeing as it was a Tuesday afternoon, most people were at work while the kids were at school. The emptiness of the streets was a form of comfort as he walked, and if Haruto had been a different sort of fellow, he might have even been humming as he walked. No, instead he kept silent.

Passing by some shops, Haruto paused, seeing a couple of cops standing farther down the path, talking with some older couple. He stared at them for a few moments before looking around.

Ah, right. This was where that one girl got snatched, wasn’t it? What was her name… He’d heard about it the previous day, it was all anyone wanted to talk about at the end of his shift at the café. Abby…no, not that… Anthy…? Athy—no that was from that manhwa Bea’s been reading. No, no…. An… Anna, that’s right! Anna something.

Well, Haruto frowned behind his mask as he watched the police get back in their care and drive off. Sucks to be her. With how long it’s been taking the police, Haruto had pretty much no faith that they were going to find her anytime soon.

He shook his head.

“You’ve such a pessimistic view of things.”

He flinched, turned his head and rolled his eyes at the woman who sidled up next to him.

Mara was a very small woman in size, hair reaching the back of her knees, and dressed in obnoxiously intricate dresses and gowns. He had not seen her arrive, had not seen where she had come from this time—but here she was.

“It’s being realistic,” Haruto muttered, continuing to walk, gripping his bag tightly. Mara moved beside him, her movement flowing gracefully that he wouldn’t have been surprised if her feet weren’t touching the ground. “What are you doing here?”

She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you really so unhappy to see me?” she demanded. “Surely you cannot think you were better off while I was absent.”

“It was certainly quieter.” Not that the quiet was good. But, Haruto wasn’t going to admit he enjoyed Mara’s presence. It’d just inflate her already enormous ego.

“I’ll have you know I was worried about your well-being, and so I wanted to check in on your,” she said, moving to be before Haruto, jabbing a finger into his chest. “We both know you have very impulsive self-destructive tendencies. I wanted to make sure you hadn’t gone and gotten yourself in trouble.”

“I’m not so reckless.”

She did not believe him, and it showed.

Shaking his head, Haruto quickened his pace, as though if he kept walking, he could walk out of this conversation. Unfortunately for him, Mara wasn’t one to give up and she continued to follow, nagging behind him about this and that, how he’s doing this wrong, how he’s not being careful enough.

Blah, blah, fucking blah.

The movie store was just across the street, Haruto waited at the curb, and then crossed. Normally he’d just start walking and if the drivers have a problem, then fuck them. But, he didn’t want to give Mara _more_ reasons to lecture him, so he decided to be a good boy and wait for traffic to finish before crossing. It took too much freaking time, had his patience running thin, but it would have worn away completely if he had to keep listening to Mara complain.

He had just reached the shop, seeing the shelves through the window, was reaching for the door when his cell began ringing in his pocket. With a string of curses under his breath, Haruto stuffed his hands in his jackets, rifling through them to find his phone. If it was the café saying they needed him to come in, he would be pissed. Today was his day off, his recharge day, his day to spend with Bea before he goes to the bar for a nightshift, they had no right to—

Ah. It wasn’t the café managers.

“Seems I’m not the only one who was worried for you today,” Mara said, peering over his shoulder with a laugh on her tongue. “What a coincidence.”

Haruto clicked the green button as he shouldered the store door open. “What do’ya want?” he asked, his voice quiet.

“Ouch! So cold,” His brother said from the other end, though Haruto could _hear_ the smile in his voice, that obnoxious, ear-to-ear shitty grin. “I went out of my way to call to see how you’re doing and you regard me so harshly.”

“Bite me.”

There was laughter. Haruto scowled as he navigated the small store, skimming past horror film titles as he made his way to Disney’s section. “Careful what you offer, Haru~.”

The scowl grew.

“But! But, but, but! Do tell me, what is my sweet, adorable little brother up to?” There was no sound of movement on the other end, no background noise, just the sound of Haruto’s brother talking.

He considered lying for a moment, or just outright hanging up on the man. But, there would be nothing to gain from such antics, and it would only serve to annoy him. “I’m at the local video store, Bea an’ I plan to have a movie day today.”

“Ah! Well, I can recommend quite a few good films—”

“They aren’t getting horror films. You _know_ little Beatrice doesn’t do well with those,” Mara chided.

There was a pause, then a string of laughter. “Holy Hell! Mara? Is that really you? I haven’t heard from you in ages!”

“It’s nice to see you too,” Mara said into the phone.

There was a click of a tongue. “A shame about the idea rejection, though, a bloody shame if you do ask me. Horror films, when done right, are positively wonderful! And it’s not just for the bloodshed, though I do fancy a good spray of blood. No, no, it’s the fear! The paranoia it provokes, the disgust! To horrify it’s viewers, to terrify! The thrill of it all—oooh I’m getting goosebumps just thinking of it!”

“That’s cause yer a fuckin’ freak.” Haruto earned a dirty look from both Mara and an older woman. he pointedly ignored them.

A chuckle. “Ah, but I suppose you are too, are you not?”

“I will hang up on ya.”

Mara swatted his shoulder. “Don’t be rude,” she hissed.

“Don’t be like that,” his brother said at the same time. “Tell me, what sort movies are you looking for? Disney, I reckon?”

“Disney.”

“Ah! Then may I suggest _Tangled_? A classic, really.”

Haruto hummed as he found the movie. “She’s seen it a dozen times. Besides, Bea likes the older ones, the ones that were hand drawn.”

“Ah, gotcha, gotcha. Then you can’t go wrong with _Bambi_!”

Mara shook her head as she browsed the films. “I don’t think Bea has seen it. It’s a good movie, but it can make you cry.”

“Yeah, but that’s what makes it a good flick,” Haruto said as he skimmed the shelf and then plucked it from it’s spot. “Defs just stickin’ to the first one, don’t wanna make her watch the sequel in case she hates the first one.”

Nodding to what he said, Mara continued browsing, “Not a bad idea,” she said and then pointed to a movie, “How about _Lady and the Tramp_?”

“That’s a good movie,” Haruto grabbed it, and then his attention was caught by a movie just below where the _Lady and the Tramp_ had been. “Ah? They got the eighties _Transformers_ movie.”

His brother squealed, he fucking _squealed_ from the other end of the phone. “Oh, that is a great movie, and has amazing songs. You have got to show her it,” he urged. “You also need to show her _Mary Poppins_! The original one, of course.”

He shook his head, but tucked that movie under his arm as well. “I think four movies is enough. I need to save some money to grab snacks on the way home, too,” he said. They couldn’t very well watch movies without snacks, now could they?

“Four movies,” his brother said with a hum. “that’ll be roughly six hours—and what time do you begin your shift tonight? Six?”

“Six-thirty.”

Mara winced when he said that. “You’ll be cutting it close. May I suggest watching half today and the other half tomorrow?”

Haruto frowned as he made his way to the counter. “We can do that. Got a few hours between shifts tomorrow, time enough to watch a few films,” so long as nothing happened between that time, that is “Either of you any other wonderful advice?” he asked, his tone turning sarcastic.

“Hmm…nope!” his brother laughed. Mara, for her part, just remained silent.

“Of course ya don’t.”

The one manning the counter was a small, elderly old man, he smiled pleasantly at Haruto as he handed him the movies. “Here you go, just these for today.” Haruto said.

“Ooh? Did you reach the counter? Tell the employee that I said hello!”

“Oh, shush!” Mara frowned.

The old man looked up, Haruto shook his head and pointed to the phone. A nod of understanding. The man scanned the barcodes on the movies as Haruto listened to his brother continue jawing on and on. Twenty pounds, fair enough for four movies.

He handed the guy some cash. His wallet empty of things like debit and credit cards. Perhaps it was his paranoia, or perhaps he was old-fashioned, but he didn’t like using cards or checks. He preferred having physical money in his hands when he did transactions. When he paid his bills, when he bought groceries, paid his rent—it was all with actual cash. And, so far, he’d yet to find a store that had an issue with it. Who didn’t like cash?

“Here we go, sir,” the old man said as he handed Haruto a receipt and the movies in a bag, “Enjoy! They’ll be due in three days.”

Haruto nodded, trying to look polite, grateful, “Thank you,” he said, bowing just slightly, taking the bag in his free hand, still holding the phone in his other. “Have a pleasant day,” he offered as he made his way to the door and out of the store.

“Say, Haru. How’d you feel if I come down for a visit?”

He stopped when he heard the question, standing still in the middle of the sidewalk. The question had been out of the blue, but Haruto’s instinctual reaction to it was…

“No! Fuck no!” he snapped, seething. He didn’t want _him_ anywhere near Bea. Didn’t want _him_ influencing her in any way. Haruto already knew he himself wasn’t the best role model for the kid, but that rat bastard was the worst possible influencer.

He’d ruin her.

“I have to agree with him,” Mara added, concern filling her face. “I don’t think you coming down here is a great idea.”

There was laughter. “Figured you’d say that. That’s why I waited until I was already on my way to let you know,” his brother teased. “I’ve been planning this return for a while, just had to wrap some things up over here, send some of the friends I’ve made some farewell gifts, but I’m already on my way over. I can’t just very well stop and turn back now!”

“Don’t ya dare,” Haruto growled out, ignoring the odd looks people gave him as they passed. “Do whatever ya like, whatever ya want; s’long as ya don’t bring Bea into any of it. That was our deal—ya stay away from us an’ I won’t stop yer lil’ games.”

More laughter. “Actually, no, no, no, that wasn’t our deal at all. I believe it was, word-by-the-word, _‘You can do as you please so long as it doesn’t come back to me and Bea’_ is what you had said, with that infuriatingly unnecessary dialect of yours,” his tone was mocking, patronizing. It pissed Haruto off, it made him want to reach through the phone, grab him by the throat and—“But! I can promise you none of my fun is going to come and bite either of you in your buttocks. Why, I wouldn’t come down if I thought there was a risk to it!”

“He does have a point,” Mara conceded reluctantly as she walked beside Haruto. “He’s many thing, but he’s not going to intentionally do anything that could cause harm to you or Bea.”

Haruto was still seething at the words, not believing him, not wanting to believe Mara.

If the bastard came down here, only trouble would follow, and Pocklington was dealing with enough trouble with the heightened police activity thanks to the kidnappings, they had fucking _DWMA agents_ roaming the streets. Sure, it was just two, but that was still bad enough. One of them was the kid of a Death Scythe, for crying out loud, they were bound to be high ranking then.

“Mara’s right,” his brother continued, his voice having lost that jolly tone he used. Now it was low, dark, a growl that whispered dangers and brought a chill running down Haruto’s spine. “You know I would **never** let anyone or anything hurt you. Anyone who tries will **bleed for it**.”

Then, almost as suddenly, the lighthearted voice he always kept, the one full of energy and joy, was back. “Plus! I know just how much Bea means to you, she’s your most important person in the _whooole_ world! How could I let someone who means so much to you be hurt? Why! It’s my job as a big brother to keep you two safe as can be!”

Haruto swallowed, he didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all. The man was… an enigma, not even Haruto, who had known him for years, knew him better than any other soul, truly knew how his mind worked. But he knew that the man never lied; he would not intentionally allow harm come to either Haruto or Bea. But his methods of prevention would be… well…problematic.

And bloody.

Sending Mara a pleading look, she shook her head, a conversation unspoken between them. As much as he begged, Mara wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop his brother once he decided to come down. Haruto couldn’t stop his brother from coming down here.

Taking in a deep breath to calm himself and clutching his phone tightly, Haruto scowled. “I don’t like this,” he whispered, angrily defeated. “Just… don’t cause problems. _Please_.”

“Oh? Is that a please?” he heard a fake gasp, feigned surprise, “I never thought I’d hear you say that! I’m so happy that I could cry!”

“Don’t.”

“I’ll see you soon, dear brother! Oh, I am just so happy! I can’t wait to see you, to hold you! It’s just been so long!”

“Just shut up, yer annoyin’.”

“Oh, this will be so much fun! And Bea! How much has she grown? It’s been six months, she couldn’t have changed that much? Ah, but she’s a child, she grows and changes quickly, I might not even recognizer.”

“Come on…shut up…”

“And there’s plenty to talk about, we’ve so much catching up to do, so much indeed, indeed! Ahahaha! I can’t wait! I’ve got—”

Haruto hung up. His head hurt and he felt exhausted, wanting to climb back into bed and go to sleep for a year. Talking to the bastard always drained him, but this one had been particularly bad.

This wasn’t going to end well, not at all, and Haruto wasn’t looking forward to seeing what kind of mess he was going to get dragged into.

“Come on,” Mara whispered, her voice gentle, coaxing. “Let’s get you home.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did make changes to the previous chapter. I realized I had to rewrite a scene to have future details make more sense.

“She wasn’t the most extroverted student I’ve had,” Mr. Rayner said as he led Soul and Maka through the halls of the school. According to the files they had received, this was where Amanda had been attending prior to being abducted, and Mr. Rayner had been the lead teacher for her class during the year she went missing.

He seemed a pleasant enough man. Tall, his dark hair combed back, a pair of dark-rimmed glasses framing his face. He dressed in a simple suit and carried a stack of carefully organized papers under one arm as he walked. He was polite to everyone they had passed; the students seemed to respect him, and from the glimpse they got of the tail-end of his last lecture, he was very intelligent.

All in all, Mr. Rayner seemed like a model teacher in appearance and in behavior.

Moving aside to let a group of kids by in their blue school uniforms, Mr. Rayner shook his head. “She kept to herself, was rather quiet, and she was frequently absent from class. On the days she _did_ attend class, well, she often wound up in some form of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Soul asked.

“Well, the kind of trouble you’d expect,” Mr. Rayner shrugged. “Sometimes she was disrupting the classroom, she’d get into altercations, or she’d sleep in class.”

Maka wrote that down on the notebook she had brought, looking to Soul, sharing a look with him, a knowing glance. More kids rushed past them, eager to get home, to get to practice, or to hang out with their friends. “Did she ever come to class with… bruises? Bandages?” she asked, watching Mr. Rayner carefully for a reaction, not just in his body language, but his soul as well. “Did she ever come to class injured?”

There was a pause, “She sometimes got roughed up when things with the other kids got out of hand,” he said. “Kids being kids, impulsive and acting out.”

His words sounded honest, his face genuine—his soul was different. Maka saw it. When she asked him, she saw his soul’s wavelength flicker and shift, radiating a nervous energy to it—he was lying. Had he been talking to anyone else, he would have been lying convincingly, but Maka wasn’t anyone else. She could see his soul, and his soul was not something he could control like his voice or expressions.

She looked to Soul again, gave him a small nod.

“Look, teach,” Soul said, stepping forward, raising his lips a little as he spoke so that Mr. Rayner could see the sharp points to his teeth. Maka felt his soul flinch. “We don’t want to cause trouble, but we know that’s not true. I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by lying, but it won’t do you any good.”

Mr. Rayner looked between the two, clearly reevaluation his standing with them. Maka could see the sweat trickling along his neck. “Well… yes… she did come frequently covered in bruises. Her parents, they informed us that due to a medical condition, she would bruise quite easily from even the lightest bumps or trips”

“And you believed it?” Soul asked.

The teacher glared at him, but his fear was evident. “Look, we didn’t have proof to say otherwise, and Amanda wouldn’t speak of any sort of abuse,” he said, desperately trying to defend himself. “We can’t go around accusing every parent we see of abuse just because their kids sported a few bruises!”

“So you chose to ignore what you saw and hoped it went away, didn’t want it to be your problem,” Maka surmised, feeling disgust deep inside of herself. “What about the other kids? Surely they noticed.”

He scowled, looked away, “They just saw her state as a reason to ostracize her. I’d often come into class to find her cleaning graffiti off her desk left by the other kids.” He said. “She was bullied frequently.”

“And you did nothing,” Soul crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’m their teacher, not their warden. They never did anything extreme, so I left it alone knowing they’d grow bored with her and stop on their own.”

This man was disgusting.

Maka frowned. How could people like this be teachers? How could people be so callous when it came to the suffering of others? “What about friends? Her mother told us she’d hang out with her friends, sometimes spend the night at their places. Do you think you could tell us who some of them are?” she asked. “We’d like to ask them questions if possible, see if they might have seen something.”

Soul stepped forward again, nodding his head. “Better yet, we need you to give use the names of everyone you had in your class that year.”

There was a moment where Mr. Rayner looked as though he was going to be defiant, to refuse their request. But it was only for a moment before he deflated like a bag of air, leaning against the lockers in defeat of a battle he hadn’t known he was a part of. “I’ll get you the names…”

Once the two had gotten the list of students who had attended his class the year Amanda had been abducted, the two had taken the car the police department loaned them and had gone to the elementary school to do the same with Anna’s teachers.

The results had yielded better results.

Her teacher, Ms. Cooper, a young, pudgy woman with a fierce temperament and a kind heart had informed them as soon as the two seated themselves across from her desk that she had suspected the Bailey kids were being abused. She had no proof as she couldn’t very well make the children strip to see the bruises, but she had been keeping an eye out, trying to find as much evidence as she could to bring to local authorities. She didn’t want to do it prematurely and risk making it worse, but now feared with one child missing, she had waited too long.

It was clear that Ms. Cooper cared much more about her students than Mr. Rayner had, and she was entirely willing to cooperate in whatever way she could, providing a comprehensive list of students in both Anna and Alex’s classes, a list of guardians for each of those children, as well as a list of reports the headmaster had of unknown individuals lurking around the property within the last six months. That one had been a very short two-pager, but still appreciated.

Anna had been a lively girl, always ready to help other students, playing with other kids, spending her recesses and lunch breaks with her brother. Unlike Amanda, who had been ostracized and abused by her peers, the whole class had loved Anna.

Well, they could mark ‘similar personalities’ off the list of possible additions to the victimology.

With a list of people to talk to and only so much daylight to work with, Soul and Maka had made the choice to split up to cover more ground. Maka would handle Amanda’s classmates. Soul would talk to Anna’s. With any luck, they’d find something.

That was how Maka found herself talking with two of the most annoying teenagers she had ever met.

Stacey and Mary were both fourteen, yet they dressed like they were nineteen and hitting the clubs. They were the last of the students that Maka had tracked down, and boy did Maka feel her brain cells dying with every word the two said.

“I still don’t get why you’re wasting your time talking with us and not hunting down the bad guys,” Mary said as she sipped her coffee, her attitude just absolutely awful, stuck-up, and snotty. “Like, all we did was go to school with the girl, it’s not like we _knew_ her or anything.”

Stacey nodded her head in agreement, “Yeah. We spoke to her only when we had to, we’re not going to know what happened to her.”

Maka held her breath, wanting to sigh and smack her head against a brick wall. “I’ve talked with the rest of your classmates, and they all said that you two had a history of harassing her, on and off school property,” she said calmly, trying to keep professional.

Mary gasped, hand over her mouth, “That is such slander!” she yelled

“Yeah! We may have teased her now and then, but it’s not like we bullied her or anything!” Stacey added.

Oh, fun. They were going to deny it. “Please don’t pretend it’s not true,” Maka said, feeling her intelligence lowering even more as this conversation dragged on. “You can’t expect me to believe the entire class would lie about you bullying Amanda.”

Mary scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest while taking careful care to not spill her coffee. “I don’t get why it matters anymore, anyway. Amanda’s gone, it was two years ago. Live and let live, you know?”

“Yeah!” Stacey agreed.

The need to bang her head against a wall was increasing. “Look, I don’t care if you think you weren’t bullying her or not. I just need to know if you ever noticed any strange people watching you when you were with her outside of school,” Maka said, a bit sharper than she had intended, but it had gotten her point across.

The two girls flinched, shared a look, and looked ready to bolt.

“We never saw anything,” Mary insisted, standing her ground firmly.

“Well, there was that one guy,” Stacey had said at the same time.

Mary looked to her, a look of betrayal crossing her face. “Stacey!” she hissed.

Maka wanted to smile. Finally, they were getting somewhere. “What can you tell me about this guy?” she asked, looking to Stacey.

“It was no one important!” Mary said quickly, trying to do damage control. But, she was effectively ignored by her friend.

“Well, a lot of the times when we were with Amanda, I noticed there was always this guy watching us. He really stuck out to me because he carried a camera all the time, that and that his hair was blonde,” Stacey said, brining a finger to her chin as she thought back. “I thought he was stalking us, it was really creepy, but Mary said we should ignore him and he’ll go away—and he did just that, he went away!”

Maka nodded, already she had her notebook out and was jotting these down. “I see. And, when did you stop seeing him around town?”

The girl gave it some more thought, but it was Mary who spoke, rolling her eyes and giving an angry huff. “It was around the time Amanda went missing.”

“Your right! That is around when I stopped seeing him!”

Frowning, Maka wrote that down as well. “Do you think he might have something to do with her abduction?”

“Seems pretty hard not to be,” Mary snipped back.

Maka nodded her head again. “And, may I ask, why you never brought this to the police’s attention earlier?”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Mary glared at Maka with all the fury a 14-year-old girl could possess, which is a lot. “Because I didn’t want us getting involved,” she snapped. “If we let it slip that we might have seen the kidnapper, we’re just making ourselves into targets, too! I have no intention of being kidnapped, thank you very much.”

That was a fair reason, a cowedly one, but she couldn’t blame her. Mary would have been twelve at the time, of course she wouldn’t want to get involved if she thought she was putting herself at risk.

“Okay. Okay. What else can you tell me about what he looked like?” She asked instead, veering the topic somewhere else. “Anything else that stuck out beside the camera and fair?”

Stacey raised her hand. “He always was dressed in dark colors, and in like, jeans and hoodies,” she offered. “No matter the weather, that’s what he always dressed in, and we had been seeing him for _months_ , so it’s like, ew, gross don’t you have any other clothes?”

“It wasn’t like he was close, either,” Mary added, still bitter, still angry. “He was always a bit away, so we never got a good look at him.”

“Understandable,” with that, Maka closed her notebook and handed them a card from her pocket. “You two have been big helps. If you remember anything else that you think might be important, please don’t hesitate to call.”

Rolling her eyes, Mary took the card and slipped it into her bra. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

Maka forced herself to keep smiling as she bid the two teens goodbye and going on her way. She had to find Soul, let him know what she had found. They had a description of what one kidnapper looked like—this was big.

~~~~~

“They were both enormous men,” the shopkeeper’s son said as he leaned against his broom in a lazy slouch. “One of them had one of those, like, buzz cuts. You know, the ones you see in military movies? They were also both pretty buff,” he added offhandedly, a yawn cutting through his description.

Soul nodded, “And you’ve been seeing them both around this area for a while now?”

The teen nodded, “A few times a week. They wouldn’t go into any of the shops or buy anything. They’d just stand outside their car and smoke. People watch. Talk. They’d do that for a few hours and then leave. They’d point at kids and talk among themselves—it was kind of creepy. I saw them following a girl around the area one day, so I just started walking with her as she did her errands, walked her home too. Forced the creeps to back off.”

“That was a good thing of you to do,” Soul praised, earning an embarrassed smile from the guy. Todd, he corrected as he glanced at the nametag. “Anything else you can tell me about them?”

Todd scratched the back of his neck, “Well, they drove an SUV, it was dark in color, so it didn’t stand out too much, and, ah, I think the plates were from out of town.”

“That’s good, that’s great. You wouldn’t happen to remember the plate number, would you?”

To that, Todd shook his head. “Sorry, dude. I can barely remember the plates on my dads car, let alone some strangers,” he apologized, and then shook his head, “Though, there was one thing. I noticed one day that one of them had a tattoo on his right arm. I don’t know what it was, but it kind of looked like one of those Asian things.”

“Would you be able to draw it out for us?”

Todd once again shook his head. “They all look the same to me. A bunch of lines mushed together, sorry.”

Soul nodded and was about to ask something else when he noticed Maka running towards him. Turning his attention back to Todd, he smiled. “Look, you’ve been a tremendous help, thank you,” he said, reaching into his pocket as he saw Todd give another sheepish smile. “If you think of anything that might help us, if you see them again, or any other suspicious individual who catches your attention, call me and I’ll be down here as soon as I can,” he said, giving Todd his card.

“Thanks, dude,” Todd said, looking at the card and sliding it into his pocket. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled, not gonna let them get away with this,” he said, heading back into the shop to finish up his chores.

Watching him go, Soul waited until the door shut before turning towards Maka, just in time for her to slide to a stop in front of him, out of breath and panting.

“Soul…I…. I got… something…” she said between breaths, bending over as she struggled to breathe.

Soul chuckled, patted her on the back. “Let’s let you get some water and breath, fist,” he said in amusement. “I’ve got some information, too.”

And so, he had led her to a bench, left her there to buy some bottles of water, and waited until she had caught her breath and drank her water before letting them talk. Who knew how far she had run or for how long to find him, and he wanted to tell her she had been dumb and over eager to just start running to him rather than calling him. But she wouldn’t have been Maka otherwise.

It was a good ten minutes before they actually started anything.

“Amanda was being stalked months prior to being abducted,” Maka said, looking at her notes. Soul raised a brow. “Two of her former bullies said they saw the same man watching on numerous occasions when they were with her, and that he had vanished along the same time Amanda had.”

Soul hummed. “I’m hoping they were able to give you something to go off of for what he looked like.”

“They did,” she confirmed. “He had blonde, always dressed in the same dark hoodie with jeans, and carried with him a camera.” She paused, looked at her paper, and shook her head, “The only thing that can narrow anything down is the blonde hair, and he could have easily dyed it to a different color after snatching her.”

“He could have.”

“But it’s more than what we had earlier today!”

Soul smiled, nodded his head, “It is,” he agreed. “Even if it’s been two years, we’re bound to find something out from what you were able to find.”

Laughing, Maka nodded her head, leaning back against the bench as she laid her hands across the notebook in her lap, “What about you? You said you had found something out, too.”

“Ah, yeah. One of the shopkeepers kids had noticed a pair of dudes who had been hanging around the area for a couple of months,” he said, opening up his own notebook to scour the notes he had written. “They showed up about three months ago, and about three days a week they would stand outside and just watch people for a few hours before leaving. At one time, they started following some kid, so the guy joined the girl and helped her with her errands so the two would be forced to go away.”

“That’s pretty suspicious,” Maka frowned.

“Yeah, it is. Apparently he hasn’t seen them since Anna went missing, but, we don’t know for sure if they’re still in the area or not. He’s gonna keep an eye out, and if they show up, he’ll let us know.”

“I’m hoping you got some descriptions, too.”

Soul nodded, and handed his notebook over to her, rattling off the traits that Todd had told him. Big, adult, muscular. One had a buzzcut. One had a tattoo. Around their thirties. Drove an SUV. So far, he did have more to go off of than Maka did, and he had the advantage of it being so recent the men might still be in the area. That meant they had a higher chance of catching one of them.

Between their there suspects, Soul felt like they had begun making good ground.

“Let’s get a hold of the detective,” Maka decided, stretching her arms above her head.

It was getting late, Soul noted, they had spent hours going around Pocklington to go through their lists of people, and now the sun was setting. It would be night soon, and tomorrow would be another day spent investigating. Such was the life. “Let’s hope the old man hasn’t called it a night yet.”

Maka chuckled, swatting him on the arm. “He’s not too much older than us, so if he’s old, what’s that make us?”

“Not as old.”

She laughed again, and Soul smiled.

~~~~~~

The music of the bar was loud, but even the various rock and pop songs playing on the speakers couldn’t get the Disney songs out of Haruto’s head. Between every order, verses from _‘A Spoonful of Sugar’_ or the song those Siamese cats sang would play in his mind, the songs switching between being sung by Bea or by the actual vocals.

Needless to say, Bea had fun with the two movies they had watched earlier, and thus Haruto would say movie day had been a success.

“She certainly had plenty of fun,” Mara agreed as she sat at the counter where Haruto was working.

Haruto hummed, passing a freshly made Dark & Stormy to a customer. “That was the whole point of doin’ it, if I ‘member right,” he said with a healthy amount of snark. “She had fun an’ that’s all that matters.”

Mara smiled, placing one hand on her chin. “You know? I will never not be surprised by how well you clean up. You certainly look good dressed nice.”

Frowning behind his mask, Haruto looked down at himself—he had changed his clothes, of course, and was dressed in the long sleeve dress shirt and black vest that was the uniform of the bar. Of course, he wasn’t without his mask and gloves. Not even a uniform would make him forgo those. But, even then, he didn’t quite get how he looked any better than he did before.

“Yer a weird one.”

Mara smiled and laughed. “Moving on. Come on, Mr. Bartender, come and fix me up a daiquiri.”

Snorting, Haruto moved to instead start working on a rum & cola. “Pretty sure ya aint old ‘nuff.”

She gasped in full offense, moving to almost rise from her seat in a fury. “How dare you! I am older than you, boy! Don’t take me for some child!” she yelled.

“Then don’t act like one when ya get riled,” he retorted, passing the drink on and moving onto another customers. “Still, ya don’t have an I.D. on ya to confirm yer age, so I can’t sell to ya.”

She scowled, but said no more on the topic, instead favoring to turn in her seat and watch the people moving, dancing, and talking. She hummed, watching.

Haruto did his best to ignore her as he continued to work. A couple of Miller Lite twist-off to the two over there, cans of Budweiser to the partiers. Some Hurricanes, a sidecar, a paloma, a few shots of vodka, a whiskey sour. He continued to move, continued to mix and take, his actions robotic, rehearsed.

It was monotonous work, really. Mindlessly making the recipes he knew by heart, making a few short-word responses

He hated it here, that went without saying. The people were too loud, too friendly, and too obnoxious. Then, once they got a few drinks in their systems, they were unbearable. The only saving grace was that they tipped well.

And, well, Haruto wasn’t going to frown at money. Life wasn’t cheap, two lives were more expensive.

“Well! My, my, my, _my_!”

And with that, Haruto frowned. Well, scowled, really. He looked up from the cosmo he was making to sigh and glare at the approaching newcomers.

Mara hid a smile behind a hand, chuckling a little. “Well, isn’t this a fun surprise.”

Collapsing into a seat beside Mara was his brother. He was a tall man, taller than Haruto, thinner, and dressed similarly, though his clothes much darker. His eyes were black as opposed to Haruto’s green, and there were hints of red in his dark hair. What marked him different from Haruto, what truly marked him as different, was the unnatural grin that stretched from ear to ear, an expression Haruto rarely saw leave.

Beside him was an older man who was a few inches taller than his brother, a white man with black hair and a scruffy beard forming around his face. He was stockier, dressed in a black tee and jeans, and had the years of anger and exhaustion painted on his face.

“Ichiro,” Haruto greeted curtly, and then looked to his companion. “Caleb.”

The man raised a hand. “Hey.”

“And I see Mara is here, too!” Ichiro said with glee as Mara waved at him, “Why, we just need Rosie and Astra and it’ll be like a family reunion!”

Haruto scowled, “let’s not. What can I getcha,” he asked, ignoring Mara’s whine of indignation.

“Whiskey sour, my dear brother!”

“Beer,” Caleb said.

Haruto nodded and began grabbing the drinks, handing them over within a minute. “Wasn’t expectin’ ya to show up so soon,” he said, giving his brother a pointed glare. “Usually when ya give someone an advance warnin’, ya give em time to prepare.”

Waving his hand, Ichiro laughed, it was loud and obnoxious. “Why! Where is the fun if I let you get yourself all gussied up?” he asked, and when Haruto handed the drinks to them, he took a savoring sip of his whiskey sour. “Besides, I would think you’d enjoy your dear big brother coming down to visit.”

“Why would I enjoy it? I hate ya.”

Caleb raised a brow at Haruto’s words, taking a gulp of his beer and letting the bottle clink loudly against the counter. “That’s pretty harsh.”

“Don’t care,” Haruto muttered, taking some dirty glasses to the tub under the counter so it could be sent back to the kitchen later for cleaning. “Just drink an’ get lost, both of ya.”

Ichiro laughed, “You should be nicer to your customers, little brother.”

“He raises a good point,” Mara added, earning a _‘See! Dear Mara here agrees!’_ from the man, “You’re going to get in trouble if you swear at your customers.”

“Fuck off.”

With his ever present grin, Ichiro remained silent as he sipped and watched, even Caleb was quiet—but Caleb didn’t talk much anyways so that wasn’t a surprise. Mara even resumed a contemplative silence. If it wasn’t for the fact that he knew the three, he would have said it was becoming downright peaceful, but he doubted the word was even a possibility when Ichiro was in their midst. It was always just a matter of time.

Twenty minutes had passed where Haruto made drinks for increasingly intoxicated men and women before that silence eventually was broken by his brother, as Haruto had expected.

He had been in the middle of making a nigroni when Ichiro chuckled and pointed at Haruto’s head. “You’ll need to fix yourself up, soon,” he said in a teasing tone, waving his finger around in the air. “Your roots are showing.

Instinctively, Haruto reached to touch his scalp, stopping before touching his hair. Scowling behind his mask, Haruto finished the drink and passed it down the counter, “Fuck,” he muttered. “The dye never stays fer long. It’s startin’ to piss me off.”

Ichiro chuckled, though Mara frowned in concern. “It’s not too noticeable, but it is rather frustrating that you have to re-dye it frequently, when Ichiro just needs to do it once and leave it alone.”

“I’m special, my dear, simple as that.”

Haruto grumbled, glaring at his brother and at Mara both before moving to fix up more drinks. More people were coming into the bar now, so he needed to keep his attention focused.

“Hey, kid,” he scowled, glanced at Caleb. “If you’re done being a damn weirdo, get me another beer.”

Haruto did that, grabbing the bottle and sliding it over to him with a glare, “There ya fuckin’ go,” he said, earning a nod of approval from his customer.

He left it at that. Caleb drinking in silence, nursing his beer like a baby at their mothers teat, while Mara and Ichiro chatted, catching up on old times. It had been months since either had seen the other properly, they had much to say, no doubt about it, and Haruto thought it better like this. That meant the other three were off in their own worlds and would leave him the fuck alone so he could attend to his other customers.

And he did just that. Serving drinks, taking orders, collecting payment. The usual bartending crap that he got minimum pay for.

He would have once again said it was becoming peaceful, but that was just going to bring bad luck—and bring bad luck it did.

“There you are!”

Haruto stiffened when he heard Maka approaching the counter. Thankfully, her attention was on someone else and not him, she didn’t even seem to notice him as she and her partner walked past. He looked past them and—sure enough that damn detective was sitting at the far end of the counter. Oh fucking Hell.

They talked, voices hushed. Haruto could hear them if he tried, but he didn’t bother. As on edge as he suddenly felt himself to be, he didn’t want to get involved, not in any way or form. He tried to not be noticed, tried to ignore and be ignored as he wiped the glasses and made his way to the other side of the counter where his own group was seated.

“Ah, so they’re here,” Mara hummed, and Ichiro was watching with a smile, a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

Haruto looked to Caleb. “DWMA,” he said.

The man downed the rest of his drink. “In that case, fuck this, I’m getting out of here,” he said, standing up from his seat. An understandable response, Haruto would run if he could, too. But, he couldn’t. “You shoulda told me there were fucking meisters and weapons here.”

Ichiro shrugged, “It must have slipped my mind,” and made no move to get up, though both he, and even Mara, would be in similar danger if they were found. They just did not fear the academy as Caleb did.

Frowning, Haruto shook his head, “Would have if I knew ya were comin’.”

Face softening just a bit, Caleb reached over to lightly hit Haruto’s shoulder with a fist. “You be careful, kid. Even though I’m hightailing it out of here, if things go south I can be right back in here at first notice if you need me.”

That got something of a smile from Haruto, though it went unseen. “Yeah, yeah. Get yer ass out of here, ya drunk.”

He watched as Caleb lumbered through the crowds, heading out the front doors of the club. He watched his silhouette in the windows as he moved and vanished. Caleb was gone, out of the club, safer now that he was away from the two DWMA lackeys. The same couldn’t be said for Haruto, though.

Turning around to see if others needed more drinks, he saw the woman staring at him with such intensity that he knew she was looking at his soul.

His scowl returned.

“Hey, boss,” he said, throwing his towel off to one of the bins under the counter, already walking away, “I’m taking my break.” He didn’t wait for a response.


	7. Chapter 7

“Better grab some popcorn.” Elijah said humorlessly, settling down in a seat in the conference room in the police precinct.

There were only a few other individuals present, specifically the officers assigned to the kidnapping case that hadn’t let town yet to investigate the nearby towns Among them were Maka and Soul. After the two had found him drinking at the bar, and had explained what they had found, he had gotten the department mobilized. He made the necessary calls to acquire the proper warrants to seize not just street cameras, but the security cameras of all the shops on that block. Unfortunately, the process wasn’t a necessarily speedy one—a couple of days had passed since Soul and Maka had made their discoveries.

But, sure enough, they were able to get footage from four different cameras in the area that depicted the two suspects that Soul had found out about.

“Only four days, right?” Maka asked as she picked up one tape that had been labeled ‘Tea shop’ on the side. They had been able to get tapes that went from the day Anna was kidnapped to as far as four days prior on some of them. It was a lot to watch, and yet, it didn’t feel like it would be enough.

Grunting, Elijah nodded, “Several of the shops erase the tape every two days, but we got some that have a few days saved up,” he answered, nodding to one of the officers who was at the tv screen up front. “Better hope your boys are on it,” he said, glancing to Soul.

“Yeah,” the weapon agreed. “We just need to get their faces, that’ll make it easier to get a search going for them.”

Maka shook her head as the lights began dimming so that they could see the video better. “We need to make sure they really have been there for more than just one occasion, otherwise if we do get them, they can claim being there was a coincidence.”

“She’s right,” Elijah nodded. “Seeing who they are is one thing, we need more than a suspicion that they’re one of our culprits if we’re going to nail anything on them.”

With that, the video began playing.

It was a single-angle security placed at the top of one of the street lights, giving a good view of a few of the shop entrances, the street, and people passing by. Elijah grabbed the remote and began fast forwarding through the tape at double speed. No one said a word, all eyes in the room were focused on the screen, looking for any details that seemed amiss, looking for anything suspicious. They all had a general idea of what the two men looked like, and they tried to see if they could find them.

Nothing.

People walked, cars drove by, a few parked as people popped in and out of shops, leaving quickly enough to not arouse suspicion. The tape continued to move, going quickly by.

“That’s Alex,” Soul spoke up suddenly.

Elijah paused the tape and they looked to the bottom right corner. Sure enough, they could see Alex on the screen walking. “Well, well… Let’s see where this goes,” the detective muttered and began playing the video slower. They saw the boy continue walking along the sidewalk, getting a glimpse of a taller girl beside him and holding his hand.

“Must be his sister,” one of the cops said.

“This one is two days prior to the abduction,” Elijah said, watching as the siblings continued walking, seemingly talking. “I can take a guess that the two went this way often enough.”

As the video continued, a black SUV pulled to a stop along the curb. No one got out, it just lingered there and remained. Even as it stayed parked there, no one who walked by seemed to even give it a second glance, as if it’s presence there was absolutely natural. It wasn’t until a few minutes after the two siblings had left the cameras view that the SUV started moving again—in the direction the kids had gone in.

“That must be it,” Soul said. “Todd said they drove an SUV.”

“They were keeping an eye on the kids, seeing what route they’re taking,” Maka muttered in thought. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they had intended to snatch the kids too, but didn’t have the opportunity to. But, we can see that they followed the kids.”

Elijah was shaking his head as he rewind the film so it could focus on the vehicle. “There’s no proof that they followed the kids in it, I hate to say,” he muttered and looked around room, gesturing to the screen, “I need someone to try and get a license plate on the vehicle. If we can track the plate down, we can likely track the owners—and let’s hope that it wasn’t stolen.”

Soon enough, they were moving back onto the tapes, finding what they could. And, within a couple of hours, had reached the day of the abduction.

“There they are!”

The film that showed the entrance of a quilt shop stopped. They could see the street before the door from the angle of the camera, and from the angel, they could see the candy shop. From the camera, they could see a closer image of the two men as the SUV came to a stop along the curb. Slowly, the film began again, this time at a normal speed.

The doors opened and the two men walked out. They could see them more clearly now. Both were well over six feet in height, and as Soul had been told, one had a buzz cut. The other had much longer hair, tied back in a pony tail. They looked similar enough, probably related, maybe brothers, or cousins.

They were talking to each other, ignoring those around them, moving over to lean against the side of their vehicle as they stared at the candy store.

Only a few minutes later, the two kids came on screen once again, walking down the sidewalk across the street, going into the candy store.

“Okay, let’s see where this goes,” Maka muttered as she leaned forward, closer to the screen, staring unblinking as the clock ticked.

Alex and Anna left the store, a small bag between them full of assorted sweets. They were laughing and smiling, full of so much life.

Just as before, as the two kids left the cameras view, the two men got back into their SUV. A few moments had passed before they pulled out, turned, and began following the children.

* * *

Haruto yawned as he walked. It was late, really late. Closing the bar had taken more time than usual tonight, in no small part due to the party boys trashing the place as they left. He scowled at the memory, feeling an impulse in the back of his mind to go find them and—

No, no, he didn’t do that sort of stuff. Ichiro’s the one who lashed out in anger. Haruto didn’t.

He didn’t want to go find the drunk assholes, he didn’t want to grab them by the collars and teach them a lesson about common decency and respect when in a public establishment, he didn’t want to bash beer bottles over their heads and give them busted lips and black eyes. That was Ichiro. That was Ichiro’s tendencies having some influence on his thoughts.

It was why he didn’t want his brother around. Ichiro brought out the worst in him, and he hated it. Then again, Ichiro always brought problems. This time he couldn’t even bother coming on his own, no, he brought Caleb with him.

It wasn’t as though Haruto had anything against Caleb, it’s just—he knew him, he knew his relation with Ichiro. If his brother brought him here, it was in response to a threat—real or imagined. It meant that Ichiro expected danger.

But, right now Ichiro wasn’t there—thank God—Caleb was probably dead to the world asleep in a hotel room, knocked out by one too many beers, and Bea was home alone.

Right now he just wanted to get home to her.

Picking up his pace, Haruto glanced around. The streets were empty. No one wanted to be out this late, the bars and pubs were closed, no store was open, and families wanted to stay close to the children with the recent abduction. Not a soul in sight, and Haruto was sure that if he had the ability to perceive souls, he wouldn’t sense any either.

He adjusted his mask, frowned. Perhaps he should move to a gaiter? Mara had mentioned it being better suited for his condition, as had Bea. He wouldn’t have to keep shifting it, adjusting it. Would Bea like it, too? Maybe.

He breathed deeply.

It was quiet.

He didn’t get the quiet too often. It was always broken by the people around him, by Ichiro butting in, by Mara appearing.

It was nice that it was quiet.

Pausing mid-step, Haruto glanced around just to be sure that neither Mara nor Ichiro had appeared. He could never be too sure, he could very well have just jinxed himself and lost his moment of silence. Thankfully, they were nowhere to be seen, no sight nor sound of either.

But, even if it wasn’t from them, his silence had been broken. Broken by the sound of drunken laughter further along his path.

Haruto scowled as he saw the pair of men loitering by the mouth of an alley, bottles of alcohol in hands. Obnoxious drunks, they were some of the worst types he dealt with at the bar, and he didn’t want to deal with them on the streets, either.

* * *

“That’s not right, either,” Maka muttered, hunched over a number of papers. On each paper was a different kanji, each one sharing a similar line or two, but ultimately different, with different meanings. “That one just means ‘dog’, that can’t be right.”

Soul frowned, sliding a new cup of coffee over to her, and then glanced to Elijah. “You sure there isn’t a better look at the tattoo on any of the other films?”

“No,” Elijah answered quickly, studying the different printed photos they had taken of the videos; ones of the SUV, of the men themselves, of the children. While Maka was trying to figure out what the tattoo they have was, he was trying to piece together license plates and other identifying features. “Would have given it to you if I had—fuck, this one is a different plate, too,” he grimaced, writing down the new set of numbers and letters. “Bastards sure have a lot of plates. Bet not a single one is listed under either of them. How’s your side coming along?”

Maka groaned, putting the pen down and pressing her head into the palms of her hands. “With just a partial look at the tattoos, there’s no way for me to figure out which kanji it is,” she complained. “I’ve tried combining the two to see if they’re the same on, but even then the words don’t make sense, I’ve done them separate—but at that point there’s too many possibilities to narrow down. I’m starting to think the tattoo being a gang symbol might not be right.”

Chuckling a little, Soul slid down into the chair beside Maka, looking through the papers. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone went and got some random kanji tattooed on them just because they thought it was cool. Just look at Hero.”

That got a small chuckle out of her, and the detective raised a brow, so Soul turned to him, still grinning just a bit. “A fellow meister from the DWMA. He likes to think he’s cool, so one day in our final year as students he went and got a tattoo, showed it off to the other kids saying it meant ‘Undying’, and how it represented who he was. Tsubaki—another friend of ours, had to explain to him that what he tattooed on his arm was ‘toilet’.”

Elijah grimaced and then shook his head. “I feel bad for him.”

“Don’t.”

Nodding to that, Elijah moved to get up from his chair, gathering his list of license plates, “I’m going to take this to our analysist, see if she can get a run on any of these plates. I want to find out who each plate is registered under and have a chat,” he said, and examined the meister-weapon pair. “Are you two going to stay here or are you going to call it a night?”

“I’m staying,” Maka said immediately, staring at the blurry photos of their two suspects. “I want to at least narrow down the possibilities before calling it quits for tonight.”

“Got it. Don’t stay up too late, I need you both back here in the morning with fresh eyes.” With that, the detective was out the door, his footsteps receding down the hall.

Soul frowned and picked up a photo, and then one of the kanji’s that Maka had written. ‘Cloud’ it said under it. He picked up another. ‘Joy’. Another; ‘Sorrow’. ‘Leaf’. ‘Spring’. ‘Moon’. ‘Dog’. ‘Paper’. ‘Stream’. ‘Flame’. So many combinations, so many words, and yet not a single step closer. “You might go through every kanji you know before we get something,” he said out loud.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Maka said, gripping her pencil tight, so much so that Soul worried it might break. “I know I should give up, but I just—it’s a gut feeling, Soul. These tattoos _mean_ something. They have to.”

“They could just mean nothing. Could be another Hero.”

She ducked her head, groaning as she spoke, “I hope it’s not. If it is, and if the plates come up with nothing, then we’re no closer to finding, and they get that much farther away.”

Frowning, Soul looked back to the papers. This was important to Maka, he understood that, he understood why. She was the smarter one out of the two of them when it came to book stuff and technical stuff like this, that’s why he had left this work to her, there was little Soul could have done to help, he didn’t know as much kanji as her. But, he wanted to help.

Looking at the photos of the two men, he stared at the tattoos, brows scrunched up. There had to be something, there just had to be.

They were only partial looks at the tattoos in all the photos they had. Corners of the kanji’s, incomplete characters obscured by clothes or by angle of the camera. But even then, there had to be something he could use, something that would help them.

Soul paused, furrowing his brows harder. “Hey, Maka,” he said, pushing the two photos two her. “Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. What if the tattoos aren’t supposed to match?”

* * *

“Hey, kid, come ‘ere!”

Haruto ignored them, continued to walk past them. His head was kept down, his glare trained to the ground. Pretend they don’t exist. Pretend he doesn’t hear them. Pretend they aren’t there. Just keep walking. Just keep walking.

Just keep—

“I said come ‘ere!” one yelled, grabbing him by the shoulder and roughly pulling him back. Haruto had stumbled, his feet tripping against the pavement as he was thrown into the chest of the other man.

Both were much, _much_ bigger than him, he realized quickly. Physically stronger as well, no doubt about that. Even so, Haruto didn’t shrivel up and cower—he glowered at the one who had grabbed him, the man with the buzzed haircut.

“Leave me alone,” he muttered, pushing himself away from the other man, brushing his shoulders off and making sure his bag was secured and still connected to him. He stared at the two unblinking, taking in their appearances, ever detail. He wanted to remember their faces, wanted to remember—ah?

They both had tattoos, vastly different yet essentially identical. Buzzcut had kanji inked on his bulging bicep, but the other? Similar it may seem to those who did not know the difference, it wasn’t kanji, wasn’t even Japanese. Chinese. Different cultures, different strokes, and yet—identical. Identical meanings, identical—

A rush of rage, of disgust—of hatred coursed through him. It was a bloodlust, so strong it made his head dizzy, made his mouth dry and his fingers start twitching, itching to grab the two, to dig his nails into tender flesh and tear, tear, tear and rip and—

Breathing in sharply, Haruto turned, moving to walk away. He needed to get away from them, now, had to get away, get home, back where it was safe, not be left alone with them, couldn’t be left alone with them.

One of them grabbed him by the arm and dragged Haruto back into their lonely corner on the street, gripping him tight enough to leave bruises on his skin.

“Come on, kid, we just wanna talk,” one of them laughed. “No need to walk off like a bloody prick.”

Haruto felt his scowl deepen, his heart was racing, the bloodlust not fading, only growing. “Fuck off.”

The buzz cut guy frowned, looked to his buddy, and then nodded back to Haruto. “This kids being pretty fucking rude. Don’t you think his attitude is just a little uncalled for?”

“Oh, it is.”

“I think we gotta teach you some manners. Can’t have someone like you going around town thinking you can do as you please, now can we?” The man said, grabbing hold of Haruto.

Oh? They wanted to fight? That was great, just, fucking, great. Haruto tore his hand free, his glare growing harsher, his mood turning fouler. “Get lost, asshole,” he snapped, not in any mood to deal with guys like them. “I want nothin’ to do with you fuckers, just let me leave before I—”

Haruto was punched.

Right in the jaw. It was strong, sudden, he heard the crack and felt his neck pop as his head sharply turned in response. His cheek throbbed and it was nothing short a miracle none of his teeth had fallen out. Though, that hadn’t stopped him from stumbling, his mind dazed from the sudden strike.

When was the last time he had actually been _hit_?

Before Haruto could even recover from the first strike, he had been hit again—right in the kidneys. With a sharp gasp, Haruto doubled over, falling to his knees as pain coursed through him, his arms wrapped around his middle.

“Come on, Don,” one of them said, he couldn’t even tell who it was anymore. He was only able to really focus in on the large hands that had taken hold of him, dragging him into the cover of the alley—away from prying eyes of passing people.

What happened next was a flurry of punches. The two men took turns: One pinned him to the wall while the other continued to punch him. In the face, in the stomach, the chest, the head, wherever he could reach, and then when his arms got tired, his knuckles sore, he would swap with the other and rest his own hands.

Haruto had spat up a glob of blood and possibly a tooth, could feel it smearing against his mouth and cheeks as his mask prevented it from going anywhere, soaking some up, but keeping the rest as a disgusting wet gloop. He had nearly choked on the second one.

His head was ringing, his vision was blurring. His body hurt, and he had figured out how punching bags felt when used.

There was no way to tell just how much time had passed during the beating. Long enough that he had a bruise on every inch of skin, perhaps not long enough for anyone to notice, or for anyone who would care to pass.

With each punch, Haruto gasped, he grunted, he let out wheezes of breaths, but he did not scream or cry, and he did not beg for them to stop. Perhaps that only served to anger them more, or perhaps they were so drunk that they didn’t even care. But Haruto cared. Even if he was being beaten, he still had his pride. That was not a thing he would surrender to them.

His mind was going numb, his vision beginning to darken, to fade. His very conscious was fading away in the worst way possible by the time they had stopped hitting him, allowing him to slump over and begin sliding against the cold and damp brick wall.

Only vaguely was he aware of the sound of them talking as one nudged him with a shoe, vaguely aware of metal coming to life. Before he slipped away completely, he saw the gleam of moonlight reflecting on a knife.

“Well, well, well,” he had heard a cheery, chipper tone sing, so similar to Ichiro, yet so much more malicious, more taunting. It sounded so far away, and yet so close, ringing in his head. The voice- it was familiar, he had _heard_ it before, but where? “What have we here? You seem to be having quite a lot of fun, got room for one more player?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise we'll return to Crona and the Serial Killer side soon.  
> Maka and Soul are making progress in finding the kidnappers, and Haruto just isn't having a good night.  
> Next chapter is already in the works and is actually one of the chapters I've most been excited to write.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooof. This chapter was almost 9k in length, but I ended up cutting out a major scene in the middle, deciding in the final draft that it disrupted the flow of the chapter too much. Don't worry, that scene will be appearing in the next chapter instead. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: mentions and non-explicit descriptions of gore and body mutilation.
> 
> As always, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, let me know what you thought of it, the good and the bad.

It had happened rather suddenly.

Maka and Soul had still been at the precinct, going over the photos, bouncing ideas and theories off once another, exploring every avenue they could find to try and identify the two suspects in the kidnapping case. Specifically, the two had been in the middle of a heated debate over what the tattoos might mean, having realized that they were going at it wrong when assuming the tattoos were matching. Maka had thought the tattoos were simple kanji, but that had only been a part of it, she hadn’t considered that it might be more complicated than a generic matching gang markings.

They had been making _progress_. The table had been littered in papers, ideas put down in ink so not to be forgotten, possibilities to explore. Maka had felt that they were close to making a breakthrough—

And then Elijah had come into the room, looking furious, looking stressed, as if something bad had happened that needed their immediate attention. Perhaps another kidnapping, that had been Maka’s first thought when she saw the look in his eyes.

It hadn’t been another abduction. But, at the same time, something bad _had_ happened.

A murder.

Maka found herself riding with Elijah to the mortuary, neither knowing what quite to expect yet, only to prepare themselves for the worse. Soul, on the other hand, was staying at the precinct to sit with the witness, see what information he could get.

It was a solemn ride. Dead and death were not things Maka was unfamiliar with—she was a meister, she followed the laws set by _Death himself_. And yet, that did not make the task of seeing the dead any easier. There was a difference, she liked to think, about dead humans, dead witches, and dead Kishin Eggs.

Seeing people dead made her angry, it made her want to seek justice for them, to find their killers and bring them down. Someone took their lives and they needed to be avenged, their killer couldn’t be allowed to walk free.

But when she and Elijah entered the morgue and saw the bodies, Maka found herself angry for a different reason.

“This puts a wrench in our plans,” Elijah said, crossing his arms as he stared at the victims faces. “When I planned on catching them I didn’t mean for it to be like _this_.”

Maka bit the nail of her thumb, feeling angrier the longer she looked at the corpses. “Please, _please_ tell me they left something on them that’ll help us find the kids.” She could feel the headache forming, a throbbing ache in her temple. “Unless the dead start talking, this is the _last thing we wanted_.” Even with them dead, she couldn’t even send their souls to Lord Death in hopes he might be able to pry some information from them; she couldn’t sense their souls at all. Most likely, they had been devoured or naturally passed on to the next life.

Not that _that_ did anything to help her mood.

With a frown on his face, Elijah looked over the file the coroner had given him, just skimming through the first page. “Doesn’t seem like it. If anything, this is going to take us back a few steps,” He said, his voice tense, but otherwise coming across unaffected. Was it from experience, that he was used to these kinds of hiccups? “The time of death is placed at around half-past two in the morning.”

“That was barely an hour ago.”

“Exactly. Which is good, bodies are still fresh, they’ll have the most evidence to accumulate once the coroners are done—they haven’t had the chance to do a full examination yet. What’s more, it means the killer is likely still in the area,” Elijah said, flipping to another page. “There’s a chance this was an inside job.”

An inside job?

Maka stared at their pale faces, taking in the bruises littering their cheeks, the broken noses, the dried blood, the dirt, at the obvious signs of a fight, a struggle. “It would make sense,” She conceded. “Someone else in the group could have caught on that these two were compromised, that we were onto them, searching for them, and to avoid the entire ring getting caught, killed them so as to stop us.”

“An effective way to get rid of a problem,” Elijah nodded his head, still not smiling, still keeping that firm frown on his face. “By the initial exam, it looks like they did everything they could to make it hard to identify the men, or to link them back to the main group.”

Maka tilted her head, looking from him to the bodies, “How so?” she asked. “Burned I.D.’s? missing fingerprints?”

“Mutilation.”

Whipping her head up to stare at Elijah, she had to pause to find her words. “I’m sorry, they did _what?”_

It wasn’t Elijah who answered, instead it was the coroner who came shuffling over to them, moving some tools about, not stopping her prep work even as she talked. “Numerous stab wounds were present on both bodies. Victim A had seventy, Victim B had fifty-six. Many wounds show signs of being inflicted post-death. Several toes and fingers were cut off, teeth pulled, remaining fingers were burned,” she listed, a tone of disgust in her voice. “The tattoos were cut off, too. You can look under the sheets to check, but I’d recommend against it. The rest of the bodies aren’t as pretty as the faces.”

Maka reached for the sheet despite the warning, her hand trembling. She had seen bodies before, it was commonplace in her line of work, but this one felt different. What she saw were victims killed by Kishin Eggs, and in those cases the Kishin Egg was so far gone all it wanted was the soul. The murders tended to become simple, not brutalized.

“It goes beyond overkill,” Maka said after a silence. “Beyond just killing someone to remove the weak link. This is rage.”

With a dry laugh, the coroner walked over to the bodies, snapping on a pair of surgical gloves. “If you think that’s bad, then I hope you haven’t eaten anything yet,” she said, reaching for the sheet of the closest one. “It goes beyond just that.”

She peeled back the sheet, allowing them to get a full view of the body.

As had been said, there were numerous stab wounds all over the body, no definitive sign of any aim, as if the attacker just kept jamming a knife into whatever piece of flesh they could get. A furious flurry of blows. Fingers were missing, a chunk of flesh torn from the arm, bruises and scrapes, blood all over. But, just as the coroner said, there was more to it.

“What the Hell?” Elijah asked, fumbling over his words, standing stiff, “What the _Hell_? Were they trying to cut the men open?”

Running a finger along the foot long gash on the chest, the coroner just shook her head. “Not just ‘trying’. Whoever did this succeeded. Cut through skin and muscles, shattered the sternums on both, as well as several ribs broken and moved,” she said, grimacing as she spoke. “Their hearts were removed.”

Maka spluttered, “I’m sorry, the _what_ was removed?”

“The hearts. Not cleanly, either. The initial look has it that they might as well have been grabbed and yanked from the body, not cleanly cut.”

She stared at the bodies, wide-eyed. “Whoever killed them---that’s not a simple process,” she breathed. “You have to break past bones, cut through muscles. It takes time to do.”

“Meaning whoever did this must have felt confident enough about not being caught while out in the open, or just didn’t care if someone saw,” Elijah said, looking to Maka. “While this doesn’t disprove the idea of it being someone within the same ring, it does raise more questions than it answers. It just—Shit! Their _hearts_ , and _only_ the hearts were taken?” he asked.

“The only organ removed was the heart,” the coroner confirmed.

For the first time since they started, Elijah looked panicked, as if someone had pulled the rug from under him and sent him tumbling into an abyss. Was there some greater meaning behind a missing heart? “Were the hearts found? Or any of the parts cut off?”

“I’ll have the investigators on scene search the area, I haven’t heard from them yet on what they’ve found over there, and it’s unlikely they’ll disregard chunks of flesh,” Elijah was already fishing out his phone, “but I want them prepared for anything over there.”

Not only was her headache pounding, but now, after seeing and hearing what happened, Maka felt queasy. Her stomach churned; she felt the need to vomit. She tried not to visualize what the scene must have looked like upon first arrival. 

She felt sick, but also angry.

These two had been their only leads on finding the missing kids—and now they were dead! They may as well go back to square one after this if nothing useful can be found from the witness or bodies.

“Here’s hoping Soul have better luck with the witness,” she muttered, tearing her eyes away from the bodies. “I… I’m going to get some air.”

But Elijah was already making his way to the door. “You can get some air in the car, we’re not done,” he said, an urgency in his voice, a tenseness. “We need to go, _now_. Doc: call me when you finish the full exam the moment it’s done, got it?”

* * *

Heather Cawfield was a beautiful woman in her thirties. She worked as an accountant for a local business, was on good terms with most of the community, and generally known as a fairly upright person. She did her taxes, she obeyed traffic laws, and was a very charitable soul. She wasn’t the kind to go out and party or drink late into the night, maybe have a glass or two early, but never enough to become intoxicated.

It was fairly safe to say that Ms. Cawfield wasn’t the type of woman to get in trouble.

And yet, there she was, in the police station, shaking and pale as a ghost from the trouble she found.

“Hello, Ms. Cawfield,” Soul greeted politely as he pulled out a chair and took a seat across from her at the table. “I’m Soul from the DWMA, I’m helping the police with the recent cases, I just want to ask you a few questions if that’s okay.”

“About the murder, right?” she asked, her voice weak

Heather shrunk back, hugging herself tightly, still trembling terribly. “I was just trying to get home, sir. I had missed the last bus, so I was walking home. It was late—I was tired and I just wanted to sleep, and then—” she cut herself off with a whimper that broke into a dry sob.

She was a normal person, Soul thought. It was no wonder she would react so badly when seeing the crime scene, it had to have been beyond traumatizing for her. He reached out across the table to place his hand on her shoulder. “You did nothing wrong, miss,” he assured her in his softest voice. “I promise you we’ll get through this quick and I will have an officer take you home. Is that okay?”

Heather nodded her head.

“Good, okay.” Soul settled back into his seat, looked at the first page of the rather small file he had been given. “What can you tell me about what you saw tonight?”

There was another pause as Heather whimpered, and Soul waited patiently, not wanting to push her, not wanting to rush her. He understood that this was difficult for her, he had to be patient—he was going to be patient.

“I didn’t see them at first—I just saw the blood, a lot of blood. I… I was curious…what could have caused this? So, I went in to look and then I…” she cut herself off once again, hitching her breath in a dry sob. “I stepped on it.”

“What did you step on?”

She shivered, tears were in the corners of her eyes, “A finger,” she answered. “Someone had cut his finger off and thrown it aside.”

Even Soul blanched a little at that, but he quickly jotted what she said down as a note. No doubt Maka and Elijah already knew about severed fingers from visiting the bodies, but it didn’t hurt. “Do you think this was right after the murders?”

“It had to be, if not, just shortly after, they were, they were—” her breath hitched and she began shaking even more.

She was going into a panic attack, if she did, then Soul wasn’t going to be able to question her, to glean any information out of her. He had to change this topic before things went bad.

Rising from his seat, Soul reached out to her, “It’s okay, it’s okay. You don’t need to talk about what you saw in the alley; we can do that later. Let’s talk about something else, okay?” he asked, waiting for her to calm back down. It took a few moments, but she did. “You said you saw the killer, right? What can you tell me about them? Anything at all will help us to catch him.”

“Right… right… okay. I can do this,” Heather whispered, shivering. Soul had half a mind to offer her his jacket, but didn’t, knowing that she wasn’t shivering because she was cold.

“He…he was young, thin…a little shorter than you,” she said after a prolonged silence. “I saw him coming out of the alley, he was—he was swaying, looked like he was trying to do a one-man waltz, but kept stumbling and swaying—kind of like if he was drunk,” Heather recalled, fingers tapping nervously on the tables surface.

Soul wrote that down, “Do you think he was drunk?”

“Maybe? No? I don’t know,” she said quickly, fearfully.

“That’s okay, that’s okay,” he held up a hand in a sign of peace, trying to assure her. “What else did you notice about him? Anything that stood out?”

She looked down, “He was covered in blood. Like—a lot of blood. His clothes were a mess, he was limping. I thought someone mugged him, so I was going to try and talk to him, see if he was okay, you know? See if he needed me to call anyone to pick him up.”

“And that’s when you noticed the alley?”

Heather nodded her head once more. “There was so much blood, so much—”

“You don’t need to talk about what was in there,” Soul reminded her.

Earning another nod, Heather swallowed, taking a drink from her paper water cup. “I… I screamed. I was terrified and I screamed and he—he noticed me. He looked _right at me_ ,” she hiccupped, letting out a dry sob. “He saw me, he could have come after me—he can still come after me.”

“No one is going to come after you, we’ll have an officer on standby at your residence if that will make you feel safer,” Soul interrupted, trying hard to remain patient and understanding. “He noticed you, but he didn’t do anything to you, so what is it that he did?”

There it was again, that frustratingly annoying long silence. He hadn’t considered himself the type to hate silence before, but now, with how many times his witness had gone silent in this interview, well, he’d found himself wishing that she were the type who responded to trauma by being extra chatty.

After an agonizing pause Heather spoke once more. “He ran.”

“He _ran_ ,” Soul repeated, arching a brow.

She nodded, “There was a wild look in his eyes when he saw me, like a feral animal that got cornered, he looked like he was going to charge at me—the knife was still in his hand—but then he turned and took off, he dropped the knife and took off running down the street.”

Well, that was something. This guy was capable of taking down two men who were both bigger and likely physically stronger, but Heather, who would have been physically much weaker than the other two, he fled from. She saw his face, could identify him, and yet instead of silencing her, covering up his tracks, he fled.

It just raised more questions about the whole thing.

“His face,” Soul found himself asking. “What do you remember about it? Would you be able to describe him to a sketch artist?”

“No, that… that wouldn’t be possible.”

Oh? Soul leaned back at her response, keeping his face as neutral as he could over this whole ordeal. “Not possible? Did you not get a clear enough look at his face? It doesn’t need to be perfect, just enough for us to narrow down a suspect pool.”

“It’s not that,” Heather shook her head, her fingers once again tapping anxiously against the table. “I could see his face, but at the same time I couldn’t—there was, he was wearing a mask, it covered up everything below his eyes.”

A…mask?

Soul felt the gnawing sensation of worry, that feeling that something was going terribly wrong. “What kind of mask was it?” he asked, not that he felt he needed to. But, no, he had to make sure.

“It was black… not one of the paper ones, a washable one.”

“And his hair, was it kind of on the longer side? Say…reached around here?” Soul raised his hands and gestured to just above his shoulders, “A bit on the messy side?

By now, Heather didn’t seem as nervous, she looked confused, “Yeah… that’s right, actually. It was dark, and with the lighting I couldn’t tell if it was black or just a dark brown, but it was around that length.”

“And you said he was shorter than me, was he thinner?”

“He did look rather thin,” she shook her head and stared Soul in the eyes, “Do you know who this is?”

By this point, Soul was already rising from the table. “I think I got a pretty good idea of just who you saw at the alley. Thank you for your time, Ms. Cawfield. I’ll have an officer take you home, and they can stay with you until morning if that makes you feel safe,” he held out a hand to shake hers. “We’re going to catch him, I promise you.”

Once they shook hands, Soul was out of the room. He hailed down the nearest officer and told them what to do, sending them in the room with Heather, and then kept walking. He tried to call Maka, but there wasn’t any answer; either her phone was dead or she was busy. He didn’t even have Elijah’s number, so there wasn’t any point there.

Not that it mattered, Soul was confident he could handle what’s next on his own.

This whole thing was leaving a sour taste in the weapon’s mouth. Confident or not about his own abilities, he found himself just not wanting to believe the guy had it in him to kill those two. Granted, Soul knew he didn’t know much about the kid, but the idea that he’d go and murder people, it just felt _wrong_.

Something was off about this, and he wanted to figure that out. But, there were more pressing issues at hand. If he wasn’t the culprit, he was a viable witness, and Soul wanted to have him in the station as soon as physically possible.

“You,” Soul said when he entered a room full of computers and techies, pointing to an older woman at a computer. “I need you to find me everything there is on a Haruto Arakawa. I want his number, his address, and where he lived before coming here, places of employment. Every possible thing.”

The woman looked startled by Souls sudden order, but it didn’t take much more than a sharp look for her to face her screen and start typing away. “Just to be sure,” she said carefully. “Arakawa, is one word?”

“Yes, one word. And I don’t care if I’m in the middle of a bathroom break—as soon as you find anything, I need to know,” Soul turned to another techie. “I need you to get ahold of the men at the crime scene right now, I need to talk to them.”

* * *

“Where are we?” Maka asked as Elijah brought the car to stop in front of a small townhouse. “And what are we doing here?”

Since leaving the coroners office, Elijah hadn’t said a word, but Maka hadn’t needed to be able to see his soul to feel the anxiety that rolled off of him. It went beyond just the two murders, she could tell that much, but he hadn’t given her anything else to go by.

“My house,” Elijah said simply, turning the car off and getting out. “I’ve files here that we’re going to need. God if I ever expected to need the bloody things for a Pocklington case,” he added that last bit under his breath in a hiss.

Maka followed, curious and confused as he unlocked the door and held it open for her.

The house itself was spacious, not in the sense that it was large, but by there not being too much clutter or large furniture taking up space. The entryway had a simple coatrack along the wall, and a little wire basket to place shoes in so as to not track dirt into the house.

“Don’t bother taking them off,” Elijah said when he saw her looking at it, already heading further into the house, flipping on light switches as he went.

Past the entryway, the kitchen, dining room, and living room merged together in an ‘L’ shape. There were few decorations, a few family photos, a couple of potted plants—fake potted plants at that. He led her up the stairs to the second floor, not saying much.

All in all, the house seemed nice. It was clean, it was organized. It was clear that Elijah did spend a good amount of time keeping his house in a nice state even with his busy work schedule, it was something Maka could admired and respect. She couldn’t stand messy work areas, how was someone to find what they needed when there was no order to anything.

Though, she couldn’t quite keep that opinion standing when Elijah led her into his personal office space.

There were boxes upon boxes full of what appeared to be files. So many so that it was cramped, almost claustrophobic. Even on his desk, there were numerous open cases left there from when he was home last. There was no discernable order or reason to where everything was placed. Oh, it was just too easy to imagine Kid’s mental breakdown if he were to enter this room.

“It’s in here somewhere,” Elijah muttered as he began looking at the different boxes, at the case names and numbers written on them with a black sharpie. “Where is it… where is it… Ah, here we go.”

With that, as if he were a master Jenga player, Elijah pulled a box from a tower and managed not to have the boxes atop to fall over. They, instead, landed on the bottom box with a heavy thud, swaying dangerously over, before settling in. Maka hadn’t even realized she had been holding her breath when she saw it.

“This is what we needed,” Elijah said as he held the old looking box up.

Maka peered at it, the ink on the box that labeled it had become illegible after the years, just smears of ink over the cardboard. “What is it? And what has it to do with our current case?” she asked.

Bringing the box over to his desk, and shoving the other files aside, Elijah opened the lid and started taking the pages out. “It’s a case file I’ve been working on since my days in London,” he answered. “My last actual case before I got transferred here five years ago. Probably the reason I got transferred. Technically, I’m not on that case anymore, it was ‘officially’ closed by the London police.”

“You’re going to have to slow down there, because there’s a lot of information you’re omitting there,” Maka said, raising a hand up to stop him. “You used to live in London, this case caused you to get transferred, and somehow this is all connected to our current case?”

“Right, right,” he didn’t seem apologetic at all. “I grew up in London, that’s where I served my first few years on the force at. About five years ago we had a string of murder cases. It was my first big case, and it was a brutal one. People on the streets likened it to a modern day Jack the Ripper.”

Maka grimaced at the name, remembering a Kishin Egg she and Soul had hunted back when they were younger that went by the same moniker.

“Not that it was too far off. The Ripper would cut throats and then brutally disembowel and mutilate his victims, our suspect showed the same degree of brutality to his victims as well,” Elijah began handing Maka files. Newspaper clippings of the cases, articles and interviews, copies of the original file that Elijah most certainly did not legally obtain. “There was no connection between victims, no discernable victimology, it was as if he was just picking his victims at random.”

Maka felt a wave of nausea hit her as she saw a photo of one of the victims. An older man who had been mutilated to the point he was almost unrecognizable. Face burned, gashes all over, missing fingers, numerous stab wounds. “You said the case was closed, doesn’t that mean you found the culprit?”

To that, Elijah scowled, his grip on the current papers tightening. “We had a suspect. A known druggie. He had a history of violence—was dealing with untreated schizophrenia and the delusions and hallucinations would cause him to lash out. The chief had us go after him, and when he went into another episode, they shot him down,” Elijah explained, his voice tense, angry. “Our only suspect was dead and the murders stopped, so people just believed that the guy really was the killer.”

“I take it you didn’t believe that was the case?”

Elijah shook his head, “No. I’d known the guy, got in a few scuffs with him before. He was a big guy, pretty strong, too. The knife wounds on all the victims? They were somewhat shallow, showed signs that the killer either wasn’t using his full strength, or he wasn’t physically strong enough to push the knife all the way in through the muscles and past the bones. Plus, the wounds were far more…organized. Our suspect lacked the ability to be organized in any way, there was a method behind the mutilations, and our guy wouldn’t have been able to be as meticulous about it.”

“That’s a pretty important detail,” Maka said, finding another photo of a discarded knife. “Were there any fingerprints linking your suspect to the murders?”

“There weren’t any fingerprints besides the victims anywhere,” Elijah answered. “Likely wore gloves. The fact of the matter was that the guy was an easy target and the higher ups wanted to pin the blame on someone and call it quits, wanted to move on to something else.”

Maka looked from the file to him, “You didn’t.”

To that, Elijah grimaced again, looking away, “I had too many doubts to just let it slide, so I kept an eye on it. I never had anything concrete, I couldn’t find any new information. But I kept analyzing what evidence I had, looking for that one thing to change everything.”

“You still haven’t told me what this has to do with our current case,” Maka pointed out, putting the clippings down to pick up a general summary of the case. Five dead. Different genders, age-range, ethnicity, orientation, religions, and economic status. He was right, it seemed the murders were pretty random when it came to targets.

For a moment, Elijah said nothing, just fingered through the different files still in the box, brows furrowed, searching for something in particular. Maka waited in patient silence as she continued to read through the papers she was given.

Then, a stack of photos were given to her. “It’s because of this,” Elijah said, his face serious, dangerous. Maka took the photos, and as she began flipping through them, her face growing pale, the detective continued to talk. “In every victim, the heart was removed, and was the only thing on the victim never found.”

The photos were grizzly. Men and women laying on autopsy beds, their chests carved open and the chest cavity void of that crucial organ.

“It’s messier than the two we have,” Maka pointed out, her voice quiet, her words slow. “Bloodier.”

“The guy has had five years to practice,” Elijah reminded. “Half a decade to hone the craft, little wonder if he’s gotten better at cutting people open.”

Putting the photos down, Maka turned to face the detective, her expression hard, her resolve strengthened, “If your theories are right and the same guy is responsible for both these murders, then it’s pretty clear we have a serial killer on our hands,” she warned. “And if their deaths was done by the ring, that this group possibly has a serial killer working with them.”

Elijah sighed, ran a hand through his hair, pulling his ponytail out and letting the strands go free. “It’s not a pretty picture,” He confessed. “But, better to expect the worse out of this. For now? How about you give me a hand on these files. A fresh pair of eyes looking at them might be what we need to find a link.”

* * *

Almost an hour had passed and they weren’t making much ground on any of the avenues Soul sent them on.

“What do you mean you’ve got nothing?” he asked, his temper flaring as he stared at the analyst. “You’ve got to have _something_. A licenses, an I.D., something!”

The woman shook her head, “I’ve searched all over, there’s no one under that name showing up anywhere,” she explained, typing away, still searching. “Either he’s not in the systems, which while possible, is very unlikely, or he gave you a fake name when you met.”

Soul wanted to tug his hair out. Of _course_ it wouldn’t be that easy. But, he hadn’t expected there to not be a single thing about Haruto in any databases. It was possible that Haruto had a different legal surname than what he used with Soul. It wasn’t too uncommon to use one parent’s surname for legal documents, and another’s for everything else. That could be the case here. He should have taken that into account.

“Is there _anything_ we can do to find where he is?” He asked, though it felt like a demand. He was running out of patience; they were running out of time.

Someone else approached him, “I called his places of work,” he said, “I was able to get in contact with the employers, and after explaining that it was an emergency that needed immediate compliance, I was able to get some information.”

Soul tapped his foot impatiently, “ _And_?” he asked.

The guy, though older and taller, shrunk back. “There is no record of a ‘Haruto Arakawa’ in their employment. However, the café has a ‘Haruto Suda’ and the bar has a ‘Haruko Furukawa’.”

More fake names. Similar enough that if someone from one establishment called him by one name in front of coworkers of the other, he could brush the name off as a nickname, or some other lie to evade suspicion.

“Are we certain these are the same people?” Soul asked. It was most likely that they were, but there was always the slim chance—he wanted to be absolutely _certain_ before going on the hunt.

The man nodded, “Yes. The names are different, but the addresses are the same,” he said, taking the paper he had and holding it out to Soul. “I looked up the apartment, it’s rented out to a ‘Sota Kimura’.”

Another fake name.

“He’s using a different name for everything. He knows what he’s doing, probably been at this for a while.” Had ‘Haruto Arakawa’ just been a name he made up on the spot when they met? Was it his real name? Soul had so many questions he wanted to ask. But he needed to find him first to ask them.

“If Maka or Detective Cain get back before I do, tell them I’m heading to his apartment, I’m taking one of the cops with me, too,” Soul said quickly, reading the address and making his way out of the room. “I’m going to grab him and bring him back to the station.”

“Sir?” the woman he had been talking with originally called out. “I don’t—I don’t think that’s safe!”

He gave her his grin, full of sharp teeth and cockiness. “We’ll be fine. Don’t forget you’re dealing with a DWMA weapon,” he reminded them and with that he was out the door.

It didn’t take long after that to find an officer to go with him to the apartment.

All Soul had to do was grab the first one he saw that wasn’t doing anything important, not stop walking as he did so, and quickly explain the plan while dragging said officer along. He didn't have the time to stop and go through a screening process for a temporary partner. He needed someone to go with him to watch his back, and he took the first person he found. Lucky for him, she was eager to go along, both ready and willing to help catch a possible murderer, and soon enough, they were on the road heading to his apartment.

“It’s not that far from the town center,” Soul said as they pulled to a stop in front of the building. It wasn’t anything fancy, rather it was one of the lower-priced apartments. Four floors, and a good amount of rooms on each floor. “Close enough to work to walk if needed, far enough that a bus wouldn’t be strange, either.”

“It’s a good location,” the officer, Watson he had learned on the drive, agreed. “Discrete, too. Not too many people around here are going to care if you come home bleeding, they’ll just assume you got in a fight and lost”

Getting out of the car, Soul watched her put the keys in her pocket before making her way to the apartments entrance. They had taken her personal car so as to not immediately draw attention to themselves with a police cruiser, and Soul wondered if he should have had her change into civilian clothes, too. No, no, that would have taken time, and they didn’t have much to spare.

Soul was quick as he went through the doors and marched up the stairs. “He has a sister, younger, so be careful. We don’t want to involve her, and we don’t want her put in danger,” he added as they climbed the steps.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t use her as a hostage,” the officer said.

Shaking his head, Soul said nothing. From what brief encounter he had with Haruto, he found it hard to believe the guy would use his sister like that, but he didn’t say it. “Just focus on apprehending Haruto, don’t shoot him. We want him alive, there’s still not concrete proof he killed anyone.”

“No concrete proof?” Watson repeated with a laugh, “We’ve a witness who saw him leaving the scene with the weapon, I’d say that’s concrete enough.”

Again, Soul had nothing to say to that.

They reached the door and immediately Soul saw the bloody handprint on the doorknob. It was as much a sign as any that they were at the right place. After looking around to make sure the coast was clear, listening the door and hearing nothing but silence, Soul nodded to her.

Watson knelt down, pulling a set of lockpicks from her bag and got to work while Soul stood guard. They didn’t know what to expect, he didn’t know what to expect.

Personally, he wanted Maka here, it didn’t feel right to do this without her at his side, it felt wrong. They were a team, they were partners, they were a unit. They worked together, fought together, they were stronger together than when they were apart, that was just a fact of life. Soul could fight, he had no doubts about that, but Maka was the strong one, she was the one who could kick ass better than anyone here. Maka was the one who made him dangerous.

But he couldn’t just sit and wait for her to answer, for her to arrive. He couldn’t just sit back and let time tick on and do nothing.

Time wasted waiting was time others could use to cover up their tracks.

“There, we’re in,” Watson whispered, breaking him from his thoughts. “We’re good to go, are you ready?”

The door was unlocked. Soul nodded to Watson, who was gathering her tools and standing back up. Slowly, he pushed the door open, tense, ready for anything.

What he saw in the darkness of the entryway was blood. More blood. Handprints on the walls, globs on the floor, a mask and hoodie both covered in blood. As if he stumbled in and began discarding the blood soaked clothes right there.

Soul nodded to Watson. “Watch the door. We don’t know if he’s home, I need you out here in case he comes back,” he whispered. He had faith that he could handle himself if he found Haruto and it came to a fight, he was a weapon. But, he couldn’t afford to have Haruto sneak out while they were both investigating the apartment, he needed to make sure the entrance was watched.

“Give a yell and I’ll be right over,” she promised, stepping out of the apartment.

Soul gave her a smile, “I’m counting on you.” And with that, he dived in.

The apartment was quiet, too quiet for how late at night it was. It was suspicious. With how much had happened, shouldn’t there be more noise? Perhaps they were asleep?

Or had Haruto already fled? He could have taken his sister and dipped town as soon as he cleaned up, he might not even be here anymore. It would make sense, though. If Soul were under suspicion for murder, he wouldn’t stay in town to get caught.

Following the trail of blood, Soul kept his eyes peeled. Just because he didn’t hear anything didn’t mean no one was home. If only he could sense souls like Maka, that’d make it easier.

Even so, he was quiet as he walked, ears perked for any noise, any sound at all.

So far, the apartment was weirdly empty. Had it always been this way? He couldn’t have had enough time to pack everything and leave, and yet there was nothing. All there was that he could see was the very bare minimum, even less than that, to be considered a home.

And then, he was out of the narrow entryway and into the apartments living area.

“Oh… holy shit,” Soul whispered. Even in the dark apartment, he could see the photos.

Dozens upon dozens of photos were tapped to the walls of the apartments living room, so many so that barely any of the actual wall could be seen under them. There were even some taped to the ceiling. It was all the room had, save for a couple of seating cushions and a coffee table.

He drew closer to the wall to get a better look, his eyes strained in the dark. Taking the risk, Soul withdrew his phone from his pocket and turned on the flashlight. Instantly, he could see the faces in the photos. The same face in every single photo.

Amanda Lewis.

“Shit… shit, shit, _shit_ ,” Soul hissed.

Each and every photo was of Amanda. Candid shots, ones she clearly never even knew were being taken. He recognized the places. Photos of her in front of the school, photos of her sitting by the window during classes. Photos of her at the local arcade, entering shops, walking the streets. There were photos of her at the canal riverbed, at the bridge. There were even photos of her in front of her own house.

Soul continued looking, feeling disgusted. He hadn’t even considered Haruto to be involved in Amanda’s kidnapping, had no reason to be, but it was painfully clear that he had been stalking her, for a good long while as the changing seasons in the photos showed.

And then, the photos began to change. While the bulk of them were of Amanda as she was twelve, perhaps even eleven, he started to notice changes in others. The setting became the same, over and over again being inside rather than outside.

They were taken within the apartment. She was looking at the camera in them, she was aware of the photographer, of Haruto, smiling—genuine? He couldn’t tell. It could be forced. She was getting older, the photos becoming less frequent. The older ones, she was covered in bruises and bandages, clear signs of injury, and yet the photos taken within the apartment, there were fewer and fewer injuries until there were none left at all.

At least, Soul thought, he could assume she wasn’t being harmed. But that didn’t make this okay, no, it didn’t make this okay at all!

“This is messed up,” Soul whispered, taking a step back, still starting at the walls. “This is so, so messed up,” and then there was the one, the one photo that wasn’t just Amanda.

It was taken right where Soul was standing, the photo-covered wall right behind them. Haruto sat on the floor, his hair a brownish-sort of blonde, looking a little younger, a little softer. He still had the bags under his eyes, still wore a mask. There, seated in his lap was Amanda. She was twelve, still pretty battered, but she was smiling, there was a little twinkle in her eyes. She was the one taking the photo. He couldn’t see the camera, but he saw her hold her hand out in that way when you took a selfie.

This could be proof. The apartment isn’t under Haruto’s name, but this photo was proof that he was involved.

_“My lil’ sister,” Haruto snapped, glaring at Soul with a burning hate. “Who is probably fuckin’ starvin’ right now cause yer wastin’ all my time.”_

He had a little sister. Haruto never did tell Soul how old she was, but he had a little sister.

_“How long have you been living here?”_

_Again with that hateful glare. “Don’t know why it’s any of yer business,” he growled out. “Probably around three an’ a half years.”_

Right before the kidnappings had begun. Just standing there, Soul was piecing together their conversation, taking every little thing Haruto had said, making the connections that he hadn’t realized.

There had been that remorselessness when they departed, that cold look in his eyes, but full of resolve, an absolute certainty as though it were a law set by the Gods.

_“I’ll kill anyone who fuckin’ tries.”_

Soul felt his breath hitch in his throat. The signs had been there, but he hadn’t had a reason to pursue them. The guy came off as odd, something about him felt wrong, but there had never been a valid reason to truly pursue any suspicion.

The photos, his statement that day, the witness—it was undeniable that Haruto was involved.

“I need to call Maka. I need to get the others in here,” Soul said, swiping his thumb across the screen of his phone. “Shit, shit, we need to—”

He had been too distracted to hear the gentle creak of a door opening, too focused on the photos, on his conversation with Haruto. Too focused on what was in front of him that he didn’t realize what was behind until it was too late.

It was the faint reflection on his phones screen.

Soul turned around, too slow. The only thing he could see was a pair of green eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness, and then his world went black.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A much shorter chapter, more of an interlude-ish one. We will resume normal lengths next chapter. I'm not entirely thrilled about this chapter but that's mainly because of the length.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” Haruto hissed, leaning against the wall.

Everything had happened so fast. They had hid when they saw Soul from the window, and when he entered the apartment— now he was on the floor, the white of his hair turning red from the blood. The bat discarded on the ground beside him. There were ropes around his wrists and ankles, a fat lot of good it would do when the weapon eventually wakes up.

The officer had come in soon after, kicking the door open and yelling, having likely heard the commotion. Haruto had stood helpless as Ichiro lunged at her, dislocating her wrist with a sharp twist that forced her to drop the taser, smashing her head against the wall hard enough there was a smear of blood left behind. Hard enough that it had knocked her out as well. She too got tied up.

It had been a blur, Haruto felt like he had been fading in and out of conscious during the whole experience, as though he was there, but not, like he was watching a movie but could not stop it. he could not even say how much time all of that took, how fast Ichiro incapicated the two, if it was fast at all.

Haruto brought a hand to his mouth and bit down hard on his thumb in a desperate attempt to bring some calm. It didn’t work.

“Fuck!”

They had knocked out a DWMA agent, they had attacked a fucking _cop_! This was bad. This was so fucking bad! Haruto was gasping as he bit harder into his hand, tasting the coppery tang of his own blood on his tongue.

Mara was upon Ichiro, fury in her eyes as she jammed a finger into his chest. “Are you out of your mind? You’re supposed to be _smart_! But even a boulder would be smarter than you right now!” she screamed, and though she was small in stature, in that moment she seemed to tower over him. “Do you even realize that you may have made everything _worse_?”

Ichiro wasn’t smiling, he wasn’t laughing. His expression was cold as he looked to her and then looked to Soul. “Does it matter? Regardless of what I did, that _thing_ and the officer would have taken Haruto away,” he answered, wiping blood off his hands with a rag. “He already saw the photos, he’s no fool, he would have realized who our dear _sister_ is. Add that in with what happened to those thugs? My dear, like it or not, I’m protecting him by getting rid of these threats.”

Dragging his hand from his mouth and running it through his hair, Haruto turned on his brother. “Those thugs—those douchebags—I-I didn’t. That _wasn’t_ me,” he said, his words breaking in his panic. “I didn’t fuckin’ kill em! I sure as hell didn’t ask for that _psycho_ to just up an’ murder them for me, either!”

“ _We_ know you didn’t, but do you think the police care if you claim innocent?” Ichiro asked. “Do you think the DWMA cares? They’ll decide you’re guilty and lock you up—if they don’t kill you and take your soul instead. And don’t even think you can argue your way in court; there was a _witness_! Or did you forget about the screaming woman as I dragged you out of the alley?”

“Fuck!” Haruto whirled around, still pacing. Ichiro was right. There was a witness, she saw _him_ , not the psycho who did the deed. That’s all that mattered.

He felt like he couldn’t breathe, his body felt hot, sweaty, he was freaking out. This wasn’t something he planned for. He just wanted to live life unnoticed, and now he was going to be a blimp on every fucking radar out there! This was so fucked up.

Bare feet padded across the floor and soon Beatrice was at his side, tugging him on the arm. “What are we going to do now?” she asked him

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Haruto quickly dropped to his knees, taking hold of her by the shoulders, partly to try and comfort her, partly to calm himself. “I don’t know, Bea. I…I’m still tryin’ to figure that out. But, I know we can’t stay here,” he was trying so hard to keep his voice level, he only half-succeeded. “We _can’t_ stay here. So… so grab a bag, pack everything that ya think’s important. We gotta… we’re gonna to leave, that much I know for sure.”

She hesitated, not wanting to let him go. Then, slowly, Beatrice nodded. “Okay…” and she let go.

He watched her leave his side, heading to grab some trash bags to bag what things they could take with them, to pack what would be necessary.

Who knew how much time they’d have to do that, though? Ichiro had hit Soul pretty hard with the bat, but he wasn’t dead. He might wake up in an hour, might wake up in a minute, there was no way to tell. Plus, he had a partner who could sense souls. Did she know that he was coming to them, was she keeping an eye on their souls to see where they went?

There were too many variables and it scared him. It terrified him.

“Caleb! Why, we could give Caleb a call!” Ichiro said suddenly, smiling so happily it was easy to forget he just attempted to kill someone. “He can easily get us out of this city—out of this country, even! He can send us straight to Rosie’s, they’ll never be able to find us then! We’d be gone before anyone even knew it.”

Haruto scowled, “Are you fuckin’ mad? That’s a surefire way to get the chick comin at us, and you know Caleb won’t do shit when there’s a meister in town!” he snapped. “Bein’ suspected fer murder’s one thing, but they find out we’re chillin’ with sorcerers, we’ll be at the guillotine in no time!”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Ichiro walked closer to him, not even caring that he stepped on Soul in the process. “What do you propose then? We’ve not many options when it comes to travel.”

Mara frowned, gliding across the floor until she was bumping her shoulder against Haruto. “He has a point. There won’t be any busses this late at night, and we’d have to go to another town to use the trains,” she pointed out. “We certainly can’t just walk the distance, they’d catch us for sure. Our options are limited.”

Haruto growled, shoving past her as he started tearing down photos off the wall. “I know!” he yelled, not caring if he disturbed the neighbors. “We’re fucked, we’re screwed! I get it!” he hiccuped, smacking his head against the wall, against the photos. It was overwhelming. His anxiety, the fear, the terror, he felt like he was drowning, like he couldn’t breathe, his lungs shutting down. His fingers twitched and trembled, his head throbbing. He felt like he was going to be sick.

He hadn’t felt this emotionally overwhelmed in a long time, not since he had been a little boy.

Haruto hated this feeling.

It felt like every choice he made was just going to screw them over somehow. Caleb? As soon as he removed his soul protect, Maka would be here with the entire police unit like a vulture to carrion. Didn’t matter if they weren’t there anymore, they’d have all the more reason to hunt them, and that’d guarantee _more_ DWMA brats would be on the lookout for him.

If they walked, well, there was only so far they could go on foot. Haruto could walk the entire distance from Pocklington to London if he needed without complaint, he’d done longer distances with less than the bare minimum of supplies. But Beatrice? He couldn’t subject her to that, not even for as dire a situation as theirs was.

And where even would they go? He was no doubt a murder suspect, and now they had proof of child abduction. Rosie’s would be the safest, but would he even be able to make it there before getting caught?

“We could steal a car.”

Haruto stopped and turned, staring at Ichiro as though his brother grew a second head. “The fuck are ya getting at?” he asked, slowly, unsure if he had heard the man right.

Ichiro nodded to the cop they still had tied up. “These two got her in a car. We can steal the car, get some distance between us and this town before they even know what’s going on,” he said. “We can ditch the car once we’re far enough away to steal another, then hop on a train. So long as we keep moving, they’ll lose our scent.”

“They don’t know you, they don’t know who you’re associates are, where you’re from, where you’ve been,” Mara added thoughtfully. “They won’t know where you might go. That gives you an advantage.”

Haruto grabbed his head. “Now we’re addin’ theft to the list? Are ya out of your mind?”

“Well, compared to what we’ll be charged for if they find us? Theft isn’t so bad.”

Breathing in deeply, Haruto stared at the two. Then, without a word he marched to the cop and knelt in front of her. Someone might have felt bad, or embarrassed to be rummaging around a woman’s clothes, sticking their hands in her pockets and such, but right now Haruto really didn’t give a shit about what was okay or not.

He found her car keys in the back pocket. Then, after brief consideration, took her can of mace and taser.

“Now we’re talking,” Ichiro grinned as he saw Haruto stuff the mace in his pocket.

He ignored his brother, instead fishing for a fresh mask to put over his face. “Bea,” he called out. “We’re leaving, now.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone! Hope no one's having a stressful holiday.

Maka’s phone had died a while back without her noticing, and when she had, a considerable amount of time had already passed. She had left it to the side to charge, borrowing one of Elijah’s chargers as the two of them focused on working through the files.

They had made quite a bit of progress in what time had passed.

“So, Arnold Pierce was the first confirmed victim,” Maka said, pointing to the photo of the middle-aged man on the board. “He’s a white male, single, and upper class. Worked for the fashion industry. He was last seen at a gala, correct?”

Elijah grunted, “Witnesses saw him having a pretty fierce argument with a woman there, she threw her wine on him and left. Pierce left shortly after to change clothes but didn’t come back. He was found dead five hours later in an alley,” he finished and tapped a finger against the second photo. “Three days later was Susan Fairchild, no connection to Arnold Pierce.” She had been in her late twenties, married, middle-class. Unlike Arnold who was white, she was black. She owned a herbal remedy shop and only took all-natural medicine and ointments. If it had a chemical in it, she refused to use it. They found her dead in her own store the next morning.

“Had the same torture markings, M.E.’s found traces of heroin in her system, but with no prior drug history it was suspected to have been used to subdue her.”

Pursing her lips, Maka looked the image. “And no relation to the third victim, Todd Davies,” Forties, worked for a roofing company for the last twenty years, a long list of fines and charges for sexual harassment against women. She paused, grimacing at the thought, “He was found a week later in a condemned building on the other side of the city. Unlikely he would have crossed paths with either Pierce of Fairchild. Different social circles, worked and lived in areas too far apart from one another.”

Elijah flipped through some papers, sitting on the table. “Last victim was James Williams.” Eighteen, worked as a lifeguard while attending college. No history of having run-ins with the law. Only similarity he has with the others is that both he and Fairchild were vegetarians. “He was found in the park the same night he was killed.”

Groaning, Maka leaned back, rubbing the heels of her palms against her eyes. Four victims, no tangible connection. They may as well have been a part of different worlds with how different they were from one another. A temperamental fashion designer, a herbalist, a groper, and a young lifeguard. There would have been nothing that connected them. And yet, all four were tortured and killed, being found days after disappearing.

There had to be some connection.

Could it be attraction? Did these people each hold a quality that the killer admired? The files didn’t say there was any sign of sexual assault on the victims, but Maka did recall reading about how stabbing was often seen as a substitution for penetration, as disgusting a thought as that was, and they were certainly stabbed a lot.

Hate, maybe? Maybe they all reminded the killer of someone who they despised. But that was unlikely, too, the victims were too different. Perhaps it wasn’t even so much as reminding the killer of someone, it could have been a small interaction that set them off.

“Do we know who it was that Pierce had been arguing with the night he died?” Maka asked, looking for the file.

Elijah frowned, reaching over and plucked a piece of paper up, his eyes roving through the words before handing it to her. “Only got the last name. Ms. Bisset.”

“French?” Maka asked, reading through the paper.

“Yeah. She’s not in the fashion industry, but apparently she was friends with the host, thus was invited to attend,” Elijah answered, leaning back to look up at his ceiling. “Came with her nephew. Interviewed them both, Ms. Bisset couldn’t remember what the argument was about, the nephew was a pretty quiet kid. Though, that was mainly because the kid didn’t speak much English. Incredibly unlikely either of them could have done in Pierce; the kid was skinny enough a breeze would knock him over, no way he could overpower a full-grown man, and the aunt became sick seeing the tamer images.”

And it was just as unlikely they were going to find someone who had interacted with the others recently who could have been the killer as well.

“You don’t think whoever did this is going to save us all the trouble and just turn themselves in, do you?”

Elijah chuckled, “It’s never that simple.”

No, it never was. But; a gal could hope.

Flipping through the pages once more, Maka turned to the board they had fixed up and the information taped to it. Something wasn’t adding up. She frowned. “This all happened five years ago, right?” Maka asked, waving to the initial four victims. Then she gestured to the two thugs from that night. “The M.O. is way too similar to be a coincidence, so chances are it is the same killer, yeah?”

“Either that, or a copycat. But there’s details about the thugs that weren’t released in the initial murders, so it’s unlikely that a copycat is behind this. But, not impossible.”

She nodded her head, still frowning. “That’s what doesn’t make sense to me,” she muttered. “There’s a whole five year gap between the initial murders and the most recent. It’s not unheard of for a serial killer to just go dormant for a while and then return, but then look at the way they were killed, the earlier ones are clearly sloppy.”

Pausing, Maka looked to Elijah and to the board, the wheels in her head spinning, she saw the pieces, but something was missing. The difference between the first kills and todays was night and day, he _had_ to have gotten practice somewhere, which meant there had to have been victims they didn’t know of yet, right? “Where was this guy for the past five years?”

Elijah took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, picking one out with his teeth as he fished through his other pocket for a lighter. “There wasn’t anything on the news after the first kills that stuck out. Of course there were murders, but haven’t heard anything about hearts being plucked out again until tonight. At least not here in the U.K. Don’t know about other places, not big on international news.”

Not here in England…not here…

Maka jolted back, eyes wide. “Oh!” she hissed, throwing the pen and papers she had collected onto the counter as she whirled around. Where was her phone? Where was her _phone_?

“What? You realize something?” Elijah asked, brows raised slightly as he lit his cigarette.

She rushed past him, finding her phone by the back table, still connected to the charger. “I have an idea. But, I need to confirm it,” she said quickly, letting it all out in one breath.

Maka didn’t look back at him, but she heard Elijah walking across the floor, shuffling papers, reading files. She was too focused on her phone. She had a few unanswered texts from Soul, and she told herself she would answer them when she was finished. Her thumb swiped across the screen, finding the contacts button. Scrolling down and down until she found the name.

**_-CRONA-_ **

A few seconds passed before she could hear the phone begin ringing, pressing it against her ear as she marched in place, chewing anxiously on a thumbnail. “Pick up… pick up…” she whispered. What time even was it over there? Would Crona even be awake, or would they still be asleep?

She bit hard on the nail, felt a jolt of pain run up the finger, brief and light, but sharp enough to make her let go.

A few more seconds passed. Maka was prepared to hit redial if it went to voicemail.

Another ring.

A click.

“Hello?” Crona asked, voice soft, tired, not the ‘just woke up’ tired, but the kind of exhaustion from not sleeping, from working to the bone.

She had to bite down the instincts to ask if Crona was okay, if they had been getting sleep, food, if they were taking care of themselves out there, the ever present concern for them raising its head. But, she didn’t. This wasn’t the time. “Crona, I have an important question about your case, I need you to be honest.”

There was a pause, she could hear them shuffle. “Um, you know that a lot of stuff is still classified right now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to answer,” they warned hesitantly, clearly torn between doing what their team over there was ordered to do, or doing what Maka asked. She could understand perfectly, and in most cases she’d urge them to keep quiet about things the team didn’t want others to hear yet.

But this was not most cases. This was an emergency.

“I think there’s a chance your killer came here.”

Silence.

It lasted not moments but a full half a minute. Half a minute of silence until it was broken with muttering and distant chatter. Another thirty seconds passed until it was audible talking she could hear again.

“I’m going to put you on speaker,” Crona said.

“Go ahead.” They were most likely with other members of their team, and if there was a chance that Maka was dealing with the same killer they were hunting, it would only make sense that Crona wanted the others to hear what she had to say. After a moment of consideration, she switched her phone to speaker as well.

There was more shuffling and talking, which became more audible after a moment. She could hear Crona mumble something, unable to make out what it was, and then—

“This is Meister Maka, correct?” A woman asked, her voice heavy with a French accent. Maka gave an affirmation. “This is Captain Deneuve with Interpol, I’m heading the case on the Podcast Killer. Crona says that you may have crossed paths?”

Maka glanced to Elijah who had stayed a calm sort of quiet, “It’s a possibility, a gut-feeling, really.” She had little more than her gut to make her think this was even a possible.

Another pause, but this time it was shorter. “What happened?” Captain Deneuve asked. “Don’t leave any details out.”

And so, she told her. The murders, the location. She told her of the extent of the torture, the estimated number of stab wounds for each, the raw level of overkill. She told her of their theory; that this killer had been responsible for the murders in London a few years ago, the similarities in M.O. She even told her about the hearts, how they had been carved from their chests.

While she talked, the others listened. She heard hums, whispers, hushed chatter as they discussed amongst themselves while Maka spoke.

When she finished, Deneuve was humming. “There were no podcasts from him since the last murder,” she said after a beat. “That is a significant part of the Podcast Killers M.O. He loves the attention, has to have an audience.”

Maka frowned, she had raised a point. The podcasts were important to his murders, it was how he got his namesake.

“But,” Crona cut in, hastily, “The hearts were missing. That’s not something we’ve told the public, and it’s never mentioned in the podcasts, either.”

“The kid’s right,” someone else spoke up, his voice raspy, older. “That’s a pretty important detail, makes it difficult to rule out the Podcast bastard.” 

There was another pause, “Detective Cain, is he still with you?” Deneuve asked.

At the mention of his name, Elijah blew out a puff of smoke and stepped closer to Maka and her phone, “Yeah, I’m here.”

“I want you to collect all the evidence you’ve gathered on this thus far and bring it to your station,” she said in a tone that made it clear that it was an order, not a choice. “We’ll be there in the morning. I want to be able to have my team look it over for ourselves before we say for sure if this is the same killer or not.”

Another inhale of his cigarette followed by an exhale of smoke. “Yeah, yeah, no problem,” he said. “Never worked with Interpol before, don’t think anyone in this town has. Anything special you all will need?”

“Just space to work and access to any information you have on this killer and suspects,” Deneuve answered.

“Got it,” his own phone was ringing and so Elijah had taken it from his pocket to check the caller ID while talking. “Space to work and all the files we got. I’ll make sure it’s ready for you when you get here. Hello?”

With that, he walked a few steps away, phone to his ear as he talked and listened, making it clear he was done with his conversation with Maka and Interpol.

She stayed on the line for a few minutes more, discussing what facts she did know with Deneuve and Crona, making sure they were all on the same page, that she could have all they need ready. Her kidnapping case was already complicated enough and adding a serial killer just made it worse.

However, when Maka finally hung up, the look that Elijah gave her was all she needed to know that things had only gotten worse.

“What happened?”

“Soul found a possible suspect,” the detective said, grabbing his keys, “And we’re going. Now.”

She was quick on his heels, “That’s great! Did he take them down to the station?” she asked, but soon narrowed her eyes, a feeling of dread seeping in through her. “This isn’t good news, is it?” she asked.

Elijah wasn’t looking at her, his eyes trained ahead as he continued his brisk pace. “There is an immense amount of evidence tying him to the kidnappings, but the suspect has escaped. He was able to get the better of Soul and Officer Watson, the two of them are en route to the hospital now.” 

Her stomach dropped.

* * *

Caleb was many things. Some good, many of them bad.

He had a history as a travelling magician, was fluent in a good number of languages. As good as he was with his tricks and trades, though, Caleb much preferred spending his time with a beer in his hand, getting drunk, or playing cards at a poker table. Maybe both at the same time.

He didn’t like people, funny considering his career. People were annoying, bothersome. Always needing something, wanting something, taking something. It was much easier to deal with people when he was drunk.

It went without saying that Caleb was a bit of a grump. Ill-tempered. He could put on a smile and play nice when on a stage in front of people, but off the stage he made no attempts to pretend to be some nice gentleman. He hated people, and he made sure those around him knew he didn’t like them.

But, Caleb did have his friends. A few. Three and a half, to be precise. And though he was not the most pleasant guy to be around, he took care of his own. Even if his own were annoying and frustrating, he would take care of them. They were family, even if the word disgusted him.

So, when he got a call well past midnight, his head throbbing from a powerful hangover, and learned that his one-and-half friends needed a favor. Well, Caleb grumbled, he swore at them, he got pissed at them.

And he got dressed and went directly to London to meet up.

That had been hours ago. Five hours, to be precise. Of course, Caleb arrived first, four hours before the two had, in fact. They pulled up in a pickup truck with plates distinctively _not_ from Pocklington. Caleb could take a guess of what the boy had been doing that made the drive that much longer. Harder to catch someone when the ones chasing didn’t know what vehicle to look for, and when the owners would not yet notice missing cars.

It was clever.

And the boy proved even more clever.

Caleb was leaning against a rented car drinking his coffee, his head still pounding. Beside him was the kid. Honestly, he didn’t know much about the girl, some brat that the boy picked up off the street. Why? Caleb didn’t know and he didn’t care. The kid was behaving, that’s all that mattered. She wasn’t making a scene, not a fuss, not even crying or screaming.

If anything, she was handling this like a pro. The boy was a nervous wreck, but she was completely calm, diverting all her attention onto the phone the boy had given her.

“ _Bonjour, comment ça va_?” Beatrice whispered to the phone.

“Good day, how are you?” Caleb translated without thinking, instantly regretting in. That was basically opening the door for conversation.

The girl looked up at him, at least he assumed she was, her eyes were hidden behind the sunglasses. “ _Comment ça va_ , Caleb?”

“ _Oui, ça va bien_ ,” he lied. His throbbing head was a huge wrench in the ‘having a good day’ plan.

Beatrice smiled and returned to the Duolingo lesson on the phone. From what he understood, the boy had downloaded the app and tossed her the phone, letting her spend the drive from Pocklington to London switching between sleeping and studying. Not a bad idea, at least in Caleb’s opinion, let the girl learn some French so that when they crossed the border she wouldn’t be completely lost language wise. She seemed a quick learner, even if it were just a few phrases and words. It was a bit annoying, however, to have her muttering beside him.

Of course, there was no doubt that the boy would do whatever he could to make sure she was comfortable, but there was a difference between being able to do something yourself and having to rely on others, especially with things that would have been as simple as talking.

He had already taken precautions to make it harder to recognize Beatrice. Of course, two years had with him had been enough for Beatrice to grow to look different from Amanda. But, clearly the boy had no intention of taking chances.

Other than the sunglasses hiding her eyes, the boy had cut her hair somewhere on the trip between Pocklington to London. From the glimpses Caleb had of the kid before today, her hair used to be much longer. Now it was cut short, jaw-length. She wore a black cap and a dark green parka coat, both masking enough traits that made it easy to mistake her for a boy at first glance.

Knowing the boy, it was intentional.

He returned to his coffee, wishing he had some vodka to spike it with, wishing his headache would go away, standing watch as they waited for the boy to arrive.

Laughter and whispers came from the people walking about. His gaze wandered two a pair of men walking the street, talking loudly.

“It’s been years, you should just give up and move on,” said the taller man. He, like his companion, appeared to be in his mid-twenties. His skin was a little darker in complexion and he wore an obnoxious red visor that made Caleb think of _Cyclops_. His hair was tied up in a bun and he was dressed appropriately for the chilly morning.

His friend was an inch or two shorter, whiter, and dressed like a nerd. A tie, a black sweater-vest over a white button-up shirt, with matching slacks. His hair style was just bizarre; all bald save for the sides which were styled like horns. Must have taken a lot of hair gel to keep them up and stiff like that, Caleb mused.

“Why would I just _give up_ on her?” baldy asked, waving his hands about as he talked. “I love her, I’m not going to just stop loving her.”

The other man shrugged, “Ox,” he said, cold and sharp. “If Kim doesn’t see you as more than ‘just a friend’ by now, she’s not going to. She’s not interested, and you need to move on with your life.”

The other, ‘Ox’, said something that Caleb didn’t catch, paused, and then spoke again. “Maybe I’m just not trying hard enough.”

“Trust me, you’re trying plenty hard enough.”

They kept walking, kept talking, but Caleb tuned out the rest of the conversation as he just stared at them. Did he recognize them? Yes, he did. Royal Thunder and the Lightning Spear; Ox and Harvar. His scowl deepened.

Those two weren’t the only ones. Caleb had caught sight of three other meister-weapon teams just while they loitered about, waiting for the boy to get his ass over to them. “Of all the fucking days,” Caleb growled under his breath. Of all the days for things to go to shit, and of all the cities to choose to run to. It had to be now and here, just his fucking luck.

Beatrice looked up at him, but promptly returned to her French lessons as Caleb angrily guzzled the remainder of his coffee, feeling it scald his tongue and burn his throat and wishing it were a bottle of vodka instead.

It had completely slipped his mind that the DWMA had been doing some kind of conference today, and so a lot of teams had shown up. Caleb didn’t know the details, he didn’t want to know the details. Hell, he didn’t even want to be in this God-forsaken city in the first place, but the boy panicked and chose to run to London, and now the boy was no doubt panicking more because of how many meisters and weapons were out.

He groaned, threw his empty cup into a rubbish bin that was left by the side, and groaned some more.

Thankfully, none of the teams roaming the streets noticed them, and thankfully neither he nor Beatrice had to wait much longer. Eventually the boy was spotted, walking down the pavement with two backpacks both stuffed full slung over his shoulder.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said through the black neck gaiter he wore, the fabric hiding both his neck and lower face, a replacement from the basic face masks. Probably thought it less conspicuous—Caleb wasn’t so sure that’d be the case.

Like Beatrice, the boy had gotten his own shaggy hair cut. Now, instead of hanging past his jaws, it was clipped short, falling just over his ears. He had, though, refrained from redying it, his head remaining black in color with the lighter roots showing through the top. Perhaps the boy thought that letting his natural color come back would help make him distinct enough from any wanted posters.

He was not really a ‘boy’ despite Caleb’s choice of naming. He was an adult, barely one, but still an adult. But, he was also far younger than Caleb, and the man had known him since he was an actual child. ‘Boy’ just ended up sticking, it was easier to remember than all the names he went through.

Beatrice was smiling, stuffing the phone into her jacket’s pocket—Caleb was fairly certain that was actually the boys coat—to run towards him, clinging tightly to his arm, her smile as bright as a thousand suns, “Brother!” she greeted gleefully.

Caleb didn’t mimic her joy and instead he scowled, “Bout time you showed,” he groused. “Got everything you need?”

The boy nodded, not even trying to remove himself from Beatrice’s grasp, his usually cold gaze softening at her. So he was capable of feelings besides broody and angry, surprising. “All the essentials,” he confirmed.

“Good,” Caleb nodded and glanced about once more. He spotted a couple of young students from the DWMA, probably no more than thirteen, careless and gossiping. He lowered his voice. “If you’d chosen any other fucking city I’d be able to get you to Rosie’s with a snap of my fingers and we wouldn’t have to go through all this bullshit. But I’m not putting myself in danger of exposure because you had to flee to a city that’s been infested.”

The boy just nodded his head, “I completely understand, wouldn’t ask ya to put yerself in danger like that,” he said. “Besides, it wouldn’t just be yourself you’d be puttin’ at risk. If anyone caught wind that Bea an’ I ‘ave been workin’ with your kind, well, ya know how trigger-happy they are. It may be easier, but I don’t want her interactin’ with yer magic, don’t want those bastards havin’ reasons to hunt her.”

Trigger-happy, heh, that was a way to put it.

Still, Caleb frowned. He didn’t like this, but there weren’t a lot of options right now. He had to be careful and keep a low profile, not just for himself. “Still, here,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a credit card. Carefully, he pressed it into the boys hand. “Should be enough money to help the two of you in Paris. Not that you need it, doubtless Rosie’s gonna wanna pay for everything. I already got your tickets in there, and the others know to expect you. Passports in there, too.”

He paused, regarding the two carefully. “Just keep your heads down and it should be smooth sailing. You’ll only be in there for a few hours and then you’re safe.”

Beatrice smiled again, looking at him kindly. It was a bit jarring, if he were to be honest, humans didn’t usually look at his kind like they were friends. But she was with the boy and anything the boy was involved with was jarring. But even so, she was a special kind of jarring—the girl had no reason to be so grateful and happy with a stranger, especially not a sorcerer. The boy sure knew how to pick them.

“Thank you for helping us,” she said with a polite little bow, the gratitude in her voice genuine. “I didn’t think we had anyone on our side, so I’m happy to know brother has friends who’re looking out for him.”

Caleb looked away, scratching the back of his head, “Don’t go getting the wrong idea, pipsqueak. The kid and I ain’t friends,” he corrected, but knew it was a lie.

The boy didn’t press it, he carefully placed the credit card in his wallet and then slipped that into his jacket’s pocket. “Are you coming with?” he asked, curiously, but with a degree of detachment that meant that he really couldn’t care either way.

“Nah,” Caleb answered, biting back a wince as his headache flared up with a painful throb right in his temple. “I’m going to stick around here. Crash at a hotel. Might keep an eye on the mess you’ve left in Pocklington. But, if you need me, just throw a text and I can be down there in a few minutes.”

A firm nod, “All right. Thank you for doin’ all this on short notice.”

Ugh, more gratitude. It really didn’t suit the boy.

“Just get going. Your train leaves in an hour, you’re going to want time to get there and find your seats,” he said, eagerly shooing them away. “And just watch your backs, don’t do anything stupid. You’re already in trouble here, don’t need the French after your ass, too.”

The boy scowled, “Trust me, keepin’ under the radar is what I _want_ ,” he said, and paused, his eyes fixed for a brief moment behind Caleb. His scowl deepened, “ _We’re not makin’ another mess_ ,” he hissed.

“Sure, sure,” Caleb waved it off. “We’ll see. Now get your asses moving, if you miss your train, I ain’t carting you two off to Paris.”

With another smile and bow of her head, Beatrice looked to him, “Thank you again, Caleb,” she said, still clinging tightly to the boys arm, but also discreetly tugging him back. “We’ll be off now. Come on, brother! Let’s go! I don’t want to miss the train, I’ve never been through the Chunnel before!”

“It’s not that fuckin great, trust me,” the boy muttered, but his tone and expression softer now, allowing himself to be pulled by the small girl.

What a sight. Caleb had known the boy since he was an actual boy, and for all those years he had been like Caleb; angry, grumpy, disinterested in people, unwilling to soften. If Caleb had been Japanese, or if the boy had been German, he might have even thought they were kin with how alike they were in temperament. But here this girl was, making him soft, making him sweet.

It was a bit sickening to watch.

Caleb was curious to see how it would end for the boy.

* * *

At the station, Beatrice had clung tightly to his arm and then his hand, and he held just as tightly, neither willing to let go and risk separation in the crowded train station.

The crowds doubled as a reason to feel on edge. Neither of them liked crowds, liked groups of people all around them. It felt like hundreds of eyes were on the, watching and judging, waiting for the moment to drag him to the ground and take Beatrice away, back to her family.

Keep their heads down, don’t draw any suspicion.

They went through the standard procedure of validating their tickets and their right to travel. Beatrice was only fourteen, not legally required to have a passport or identification card, and so all she had to do was cling closely to her brother.

But for him, it was harder. He kept his face as straight as possible and handed the woman at the counter their tickets and then his passport. He had flipped through the pages while they waited, and there were already visa stamps on other pages to suggest previous travels in Germany and Italy, probably to emphasize his nonexistent pass. It was fake, clearly, but more than authentic-looking enough to get by.

“Haru Auclair?” she read, looking at him and then the photo on the card. She asked a few questions and he answered them with prewritten answers. A few minutes passed before he and Beatrice were able to leave and board the train.

They reached their seats, sitting next to one another, Beatrice by the window, and he by the aisle, a shield of flesh and blood so that no one could touch her or snatch her or take her away.

People continued to climb in, finding their seats, chatting loudly. He stared ahead, wrangling the facts and lies together in his head like a weaver frustrated at the loom.

Haru Auclair. That was his name, for now.

Haru Auclair. He had just turned twenty-three a month ago.

Haru Auclair. He had never met Haruto Arakawa.

Haru Auclair. He and his sister, Beatrice Auclair were going to be in Paris for a few weeks.

Haru Auclair. He hadn’t been in Pocklington before.

Haru Auclair. He was a freelance photographer, and had some a commission for photos of Paris.

Haru Auclair. He was the sole guardian of Beatrice, their parents passed away three years ago in a car wreck.

Haru Auclair. There were murders and kidnappings just a few hours away? He hadn’t been aware.

Haru Auclair. He’s never been involved with the DWMA once in his life.

Haru Auclair. He was—

“Hello!”

He snapped out of his thoughts, twisting his head to look at the group of three who had just taken a seat across the aisle.

The one who had spoken was the shorter of the three, blonde hair and a wide smile. She waved her hand at the two. “Going cross-country too? We’re going to France, are you going, too?” she said, trying to strike up a conversation, but was doing so with far too much enthusiasm and energy than he had the strength of will to endure.

The other woman was taller, darker blonde, a matching outfit. “Patty,” she scolded, frowning disapproving at the other as she pulled a magazine from her bag.

And here he thought this day couldn’t get any worse. He would have asked if he had angered some God to bring about such foul luck, but there wasn’t any point to that when a God was currently sitting beside him

Offering a polite smile, the golden-eyed one kept his gaze on the pair. “Sorry for the disturbance,” he apologized, and then held out a hand. “It looks like we'll be riding together for a couple of hours. I'm Kid, and you are?”

This had to have been karma, a foul batch of karma. It couldn’t be a coincidence, it couldn’t just be some fluke, a bit of chance. Of all the bastards that school provides, it couldn’t be simple randomness that had _this one_ sitting across the aisle from him.

He didn’t smile, the tight frown showed in his eyes even with his mouth hidden, but he took the offered hand, giving it a shake, “Haru Auclair,” he introduced.

 _Fuck_.


End file.
